B5: Soul Hunter

The episode begins with an unknown ship coming out of the hyperspace vortex and veering out of control towards Babylon 5. This might just be me, but if I was building that station, I would make sure that it's not directly in front of the vortex. You know, so somebody can't just send a bomb through there? Actually, I guess if someone really wanted to destroy the station they could just send an unmanned ship through there, because that will apparently be enough to get the job done.

Sinclair manages to grab the ship before it runs its course, however, and brings the pilot onto the station. While the alien is still in sickbay, the Minbari Ambassador Delenn recognizes him as a "soul hunter." The alien has the ability to sense oncoming death, and he claims that he travels around, capturing the souls of people before they die. It's nice that the show is taking some risks here to transcend other sci-fi series, but it doesn't really seem to fit with what they've already established here. You can't just throw in a spiritual aspect into the early first season of a series without leading up to it and expect the audience to be awed by it. You need to take some steps first in order to convince even the most skeptical viewers that there is a possibility that souls and "life after death" exists.

Neelix's game spread far after Voyager returned home

(You need to be a real ST: Voyager freak to get this one...)

I guess my main point is that it's difficult to introduce such a topic at this early stage in the series; most of the time it just makes the show look silly. The idea behind the soul hunter is somewhat interesting, but they didn't really expand on his motivations and ended up depicting him as a gone-crazy alien who wants to capture souls for some evil reason. He escapes and is about to capture the soul of Delenn, but Sinclair arrives and uses the soul capturer machine on the soul hunter. Oh, the irony.

This episode took a crack at something completely unrelated to the plot, but it ultimately didn't accomplish much. It was better when it focused around how the different aliens on the station were interacting rather than around a cheesy season 1 plot device.

Score: 2

Best Quote: "If that's the case, then we just have to figure out who's going to die."

Best Moment: Soul capturer captures the soul capturer

nuBSG: Miniseries Part 2

This is the second and final part of the miniseries pilot before we get to the actual episodes, but I'm still going to keep this brief because this part of the miniseries pretty much has the same quality of the first part. The plot is just allowed to progress a bit more until we reach a nice position in which the series can begin.

The Cylons continue their attack on the Twelve Colonies, and soon Galactica is the only remaining battlestar. The ship makes an FTL jump to Ragnar to recover. The colony ship bearing Roslin and the Raptor that Baltar has taken refuge in reunite, and they amass a group of about 60 ships, but only 40 of them being FTL-capable. Roslin is forced to leave the sublight ships behind, not having enough time to evacuate the civilians.


The FTL-capable ships meet up with the Galactica at Ragnar, and Baltar goes to work on removing the programs on board their ships that cause them to be susceptible to the Cylon's hacking. However, he is now being haunted by a virtual image of the Cylon "Number Six". Baltar soon discovers that there is a Cylon agent on board, while the fleet is forced to leave Ragnar when the Cylons show up.

This part of the pilot runs much like the previous one, but I can feel the impact of the story increase as the plot thickens. Already we have a few characters being forced to make questionable and cold decisions for the sake of humanity's survival. It's a very cool premise for a show; I can only hope that this idea remains central to the series and that the actors take it up a notch.

Score: 7

Best Quote: "You cannot play God then wash your hands of the things you've created."

Best Moment: Baltar witnessing the Cylons attack Caprica.

TZ: Mr. Denton on Doomsday

As the episode opens, we see that this story will take place in the old west. *Sigh*. Now, don't get me wrong, I try to be open-minded when it comes to episodes and movies set in unique places and locations, but the setting isn't interesting to me at all. Sci-Fi episodes set in the old west can actually be entertaining and worthwhile if done properly, Star Trek: The Next Generation's "A fistful of Datas" comes to mind, but I've never been a huge fan of the wild west genre.

Like I said, if this episode was done well I would not be complaining about this too much, but I really had a tough time caring about the plot. I'll try to keep this brief so I don't sound like I'm droning on about this and getting nowhere. So, a washed-up gunslinger named Al Denton is encountered by Henry J. Fate, who wants to give him another chance. Fate(that's a subtle pun, huh?) offers Denton a potion that he claims will make him the fastest gunslinger in the West for ten seconds.

Denton agrees, and takes a swig of the potion before he is about to face Pete Grant, a young gunslinger. But, he sees that Pete Grant has done the same, and they both shoot each other in the hand. They will both now be unable to fire a gun again, and Denton tells his opponent that they have both been blessed because they will never again be able to fire a gun in aggression.

So, the message is there, but you sort of have to be a fan of the genre in order for the episode to have a resounding impact. The actors are entertaining to watch, but the episode didn't really work for me.

Score: 5

Best Quote: "Because, you see, Fate can work that way...in the Twilight Zone."

Best Moment: Denton and Grant shooting each other in the hand.

Cheesy 60s Moment: There isn't one that particularly sticks out to me.

ST: TOS The Man Trap

The Enterprise arrives at planet M-113 to hand over some medical supplies to Dr. Robert Crater, when McCoy identifies the Doctor's wife as "Nancy", the woman with whom McCoy used to be romantically involved with. Kirk finds this a bit odd, but he doesn't really start to question it until a couple crewmen on the planet are found dead with several hickeys on their heads.

Kirk pays a visit to the props warehouse

Known to the audience, but not known to the crew, Nancy is actually a creature that can take the shape of any being. The reason that it has been attacking the crew members is that it needs salt to survive. It lures men by changing into an appealing woman, catching them with a hypnotic stare, and then sucking the salt out of them. Hence, "the man trap".

In the middle part of the episode, the creature finds its way onto the Enterprise and wanders around, looking for its next victim. It takes the form of various crew members in order to stay under cover, and it's a wonder that the rest of the crew don't put much thought into it's strange behavior. There is some very strange dialogue during this part, such as "go chase an asteroid", "he must have gone Space Happy", and "your own personal Yeoman". Despite this, however, we get an interesting look into how the crew operates on a daily basis and a feel for the unique space-venturing atmosphere of the show.

Insert your own "Sulu is gay" joke here

While McCoy goes back to his quarters and rests, Kirk and Spock hunt down Dr. Crater and question him about death of his crewmen and "Nancy". Dr. Crater tells them all about the creature, but claims that it's only trying to survive. The creature, who has now taken the form of McCoy, also agrees with this viewpoint, but this only leaves Spock suspicious about McCoy. Dr. Crater reveals that the creature and him have developed a sort of symbiotic relationship ever since the creature killed the really Nancy Crater for salt.

But the stress from the lack of salt and the investigation starts to get to the creature, and it kills Dr. Crater. It nearly kills McCoy when Kirk and Spock rush in, having discovered the creature's secret. McCoy is eventually forced to kill the creature to save himself and the rest of the crew.

This episode was not great by any means, but it still had the atmosphere and character interactions that would be prevalent throughout the rest of the series. Most importantly, though, this episode showed how original Star Trek could be when written and acted correctly.

Score: 7

Best Quote: "It needs love as much as it needs salt."

Best Moment: The creature begins to suck the salt out of Kirk, and McCoy is forced to kill it.

Red Shirt Deaths: Still 0, but there could have been at least 4 this time...

LOST: Tabula Rasa

As the title suggests, this episode centers around the idea of tabula rasa, or "clean slate" as it's translated from latin. Now that the Losties are stranded on the island with people that don't know them very well, they all have a chance to start their lives over. This idea will remain central to the show for a while now as we see flashbacks from the points of view of other characters, but the story is focused more around Kate this episode.


As hinted at in the pilot, Jack discovers from the dying US Marshal that Kate is a former criminal. This information starts to leak out to some of the other Losties, most importantly Hurley and Sawyer, but we still don't know what it is that she actually did. Sawyer eventually decides to just put the Marshal out of his misery with his remaining bullet, but he misses the heart and causes the Marshal to have a longer, more painful death. Locke returns Vincent to Walt, and there's some hope that the relationship between Walt and his dad will be sustained.


There weren't many clues in this episode that I could find, but this is expected because it's an early season one episode. One thing that is interesting, however, is the fact that the plane was already far off course before hitting turbulence and crashing on the island. This might suggest that Jacob had something to do with the plane crash, although Desmond is the one who caused the system failure that caused the turbulence. This will definitely be something to think about as I watch further episodes.

Score: 8

Best Quote: "Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over."

Best Moment: The camera rotating around Locke's head at the end. It's a nice lead-in to the next episode.

WTF Moment: It's not a very big moment, but the Marshal surviving the gunshot was surprising.

B5: Midnight on the Firing Line

This episode starts off with a really cliché sequence. We see a few Centauri on a station orbiting Ragesh 3. Okay, so I guess all Centauri share that sideways mohawk hairdo. What's up with that thing? Anyway, the conversation sounds something like this:

"Somebody's dropping out of hyperspace!"
"They're attacking us!"
"I know who they are! They're the-"
The station is destroyed.

I know they probably just needed to fulfill the CGI quota for the week, but they could have found a better way of doing it. I'm probably getting too picky, though, so let's get to the rest of the episode.

Londo Mollari analyzes the footage recovered from the attack and discovers that the Narn are behind it. This really brings out the tension between Mollari and G'Kar, and a fight nearly breaks out between the two. Apparently the Centauri once had control over most of the galaxy, to the point where humans almost believed that they were distant cousins of them, but now the Narn want their turn.

"Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of hairspray!"

However, at a council meeting, G'Kar presents evidence that the Narn were not behind the attack. He calls up a live feed to Ragesh 3, where a Centauri somewhat reluctantly claims that Ragesh 3 has allied with the Narn in order to receive aid when none was given by Centauri Prime. Mollari refuses to believe this evidence, stating that the whole thing was forced.

Mollari grows more and more upset with G'Kar, and assembles a weapon in secret to kill him. On his way, though, he encounters Talia, who gets a telepathic vision of the intended event. She informs Garabaldi, who stops Mollari and convinces him not to go through with it. Sinclair has received new information about the attack by now, and declares that it was entirely unprovoked. It turns out that the Narn were behind it after all.

"Yeah, he always walks like that..."

This episode was a nice step forward. I didn't see any of the annoying characters that I saw last week, and the plot didn't hesitate to keep moving. It isn't anything special yet, but this episode was more interesting to watch.

Score: 5

Best Quote: "The wheel turns, does it not, Ambassador?"

Best Moment: G'Kar and Sinclair talking in the Zen garden. It just seemed like a good scene.

nuBSG: Miniseries Part 1

Before I get this review going, I should say that I'm completely new to Battlestar Galactica. This just seemed like a nice place to start because I've heard good things about this series. I've gathered a little about the back story from around the internet, but for the most part this should be new and interesting.

The Cylon War has ended over 40 years ago, and humans from the twelve colonies of Kobol have built an Armistice Station in hopes of maintaining peaceful relations with the Cylons. In all the time that the station has been maintained, the Cylons have never sent an ambassador. However, today is different. Two Cylons enter as guards, and a woman walks in and approaches the officer. The officer can only sit in shock as the woman says "It has begun," and the station is destroyed. Wow, what an epic opening. I hope the rest of this show is as exciting as that was.

The apparently famous scientist Gaius Baltar is greeted in his home by a woman who is identical to the one in the armistice station. She reveals that she is a Cylon agent, an android that has used him to access critical facilities and gain information about Caprica. Before Baltar can fully grasp the situation, he sees a nuclear explosion go off in the distance through his windows. Caprica is now under full attack, and the Cylon tells Baltar that there are twelve Cylon models, and that she is number six.

The Galactica is soon informed of the attack, and the crew are completely caught off guard. In a desperate move, they send several Viper fighters out to meet the Cylon Raiders. They barely manage to get rid of the Cylons, but the Galactica is spinning out of control, so Colonel Tigh is forced to decompress sections of the Galactica's flight pod and kill 85 crew
members.

After a Raptor bearing Helo and Boomer from the Galactica makes an emergency landing, they are confronted by a group of survivors that are seeking refuge. They can only take three adults, however, so they have a raffle to decide who goes with them. The last number is 47, which belongs to an elderly woman standing next to Baltar. The elderly woman is allowed to board, and Helo gives up his seat on the Raptor to Baltar, whom he believes is more important.

Because the President and his cabinet have all perished, Secretary Roslin is the only person who can take the position. She is sworn into the position of the President of the Twelve Colonies despite some protests.

There's already some good stuff going on in this portion of the pilot. There's a nice balance between the visual effects and person-to-person shots, and the soundtrack sounds pretty cool too. It has somewhat of an exotic feel to it, and it's more contemporary than what I was expecting. The plot is moving along well, and I like how the Cylons are shrouded in mystery, at least at this point. Still, the acting doesn't really cut it for me yet, which I think brings this pilot down to just a "good" level for now.

Score: 6

I'll do the best quote/moment things after I see the entire miniseries.

TZ: One for the Angels

The episode opens and we get a brief narration on Lew Bookman, the man who is standing on the sidewalk. He is a salesman who is around 60 years old, and it doesn't look like he is having much success. There is another man several feet away from him, taking down a few notes, whom the narrator refers to as "Mr. Death".

As Bookman returns home we see several children waiting by his house, and he appears to have much more success with selling toys to them. I wouldn't be surprised if that was his major source of income because he gets along with them so well. Bookman soon enters his house, only to find Mr. Death sitting there. Mr. Death informs him that he must die at midnight, but Bookman obviously resists. After a few failed attempts, he explains to Mr. Death that he needs to make one last sales pitch, "a pitch for the angels", in order to finish his business on Earth. His thinking is that as long as he is puts off this pitch, he will stay alive.

♪ Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street? ♪

Mr. Death, however, is smarter than that. In retaliation, he switches his target to a girl that Bookman is especially good friends with. He causes a car to run her over, and she is rushed to the hospital. Bookman is not going to let her die at midnight, so he sits at the steps of the hospital, awaiting Mr. Death. When Mr. Death arrives, Bookman tries to distract him by making a few sales pitches, and closes off the deal by selling himself to Mr. Death.

Hello, Bella. Meet Mr. Death

This is one of the only problems I have with this episode: it actually works. Mr. Death is so distracted by these propositions much that he actually forgets about visiting the girl at midnight, and the girl survives. Although Bookman does take her place, which was what Mr. Death aimed for originally, it just doesn't make any sense that Mr. Death would be persuaded by Bookman's pitches. He's Death. How could he possibly miss this deadline?

All grievances aside, the episode is saved by Ed Wynn, who plays Lew Bookman. He plays the part of the bumbling salesman who just wants to escape death especially well, and it's entertaining to watch him to do it. The episode doesn't really have a twist, but it wasn't necessary for what it was trying to do. It would have been far more interesting if the episode had been more like "Masque of the Red Death", in which a man thinks he can escape death but ultimately cannot. This one had the same idea, but the "Mr. Death gets tricked" part ruins the episode for me.

Score: 4

Best Quote: "Depature time is set for midnight, and departure will be midnight."

Best Moment: Mr. Death and Mr. Bookman eerily walk off into the night.

Cheesy 60s Moment: Mr. Death turns to the camera on a dramatic note.

ST:TOS Where No Man Has Gone Before

Here's where the Star Trek episode order starts to get confusing. As I talked about in the last TOS review, The Cage was rejected as a pilot and never initially aired. The second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before(WNMHGB), had a much better reception and was accepted by NBC. However, The Man Trap was actually aired as the first episode and WNMHGB became the third episode. Yeah, I don't get it either.

WNMHGB begins with Kirk and Spock playing a game of three-dimensional chess, and we get some nice opening banter between them. Kirk, however, is too preoccupied with a ship's distress call to have a chance against Spock. The crew recovers a ship recorder in dead space from the SS Valiant, which is supposed to be sent out in the event of an emergency. Soon, they discover that the crew had accessed records on the subject of "ESP" in humans before the captain had initiated a self-destruct.

The Enterprise soon encounters a strange field or barrier of some sort that wreaks havoc on the ship. Consoles explode, light fills the bridge, and the Enterprise is forced to travel on impulse power only. Two crew members who have been identified as having high levels of ESP, Dr. Dehner and Gary Mitchell, are targeted by the light, but they both appear to be unharmed except for some brain damage in specific areas. Here is where I start to disagree with the episode. The whole idea of ESP seems really illogical and foreign to me, mostly because the premise itself doesn't make much sense. Perception without sensation? That doesn't make much sense, but the episode takes it one step further when Spock suggests that people with these abilities could potentially be dangerous. Wait, what? ESP doesn't imply any "dangerous" abilities, it just implies that one can perceive things without actually sensing them.

Well, it turns out Spock was right, as Mitchell begins exhibiting some strange behavior. He increases his reading speed dramatically, and develops the ability to manipulate things entirely with his mind. *Sigh*, okay. From now on I'll just let the ESP stuff go because it is, after all, science fiction. Anyway, Spock calculates that in about a month, Mitchell will have developed to the point where the crew will just seem like mice to him. He urges Kirk that the crew's safety depends on Mitchell being taken out of the picture. Kirk does not want to accept this, partly because he has known Mitchell for so long and partly because he does not want to leave a man behind.

Things take a turn for the worse as Mitchell shocks Spock and Kirk with, I guess you could call it force lightning, and Kirk is forced to sedate him and bring him down to the deserted planet of Delta Vega. Hey, wasn't that the same planet that Kirk was marooned on in latest Star Trek film? Interesting. It's not long before Mitchell breaks free of his cell before the Enterprise can leave, and he takes Dehner with him, who has also been recently endowed with the "powers". The two now god-like people set up their paradise, but Dehner is still uncertain about the power that they now yield and how Mitchell is using it.

Beware the haunted extension cords on Delta Vega

Eventually Kirk arrives and tries to battle Mitchell. He is now impenetrable to phaser blasts, though, and Kirk is powerless against him. Mitchell even creates a grave for Kirk, but his reign ends when Dehner and Mitchell have a lightning battle, ending with Kirk pushing a boulder into the grave into which Mitchell falls. Yes, apparently huge rocks can destroy Gods.

Kirk is caught in a grave situation...

This was a pretty good pilot. Although we didn't necessarily get much back story on the characters, I don't think we needed too. It was a nice opening for the series because we got to see where the show might be headed, and a feel for the episodic nature of it. Mitchell really went where no man has gone before, but on a deeper level, Kirk also did because he was forced to kill his own friend for the sake of the crew.

Score: 6

Best Quote: "Will you try for a moment to feel? At least act like you've got a heart."

Best Moment: The force lightning battle

Red Shirt Deaths: 0, but 3 people did die

LOST: Pilot

In addition to the other Science Fiction shows that I have started, I will be going through all the Lost episodes from start to finish. Especially since the series recently ended, I plan to look at each episode with a closer eye and catch some things that I didn't see the first time around. Because of this, these reviews will focus more on the mysteries surrounding Lost than the actual quality of the episodes. I will still be rating each one, but I won't necessarily be explaining why or be going into extreme detail. Instead, they will be more like lists of noteworthy things that can hopefully help answer some things that were never explained. I will obviously be going into this with knowledge of the whole show, so again, I won't be using discretion for spoilers.

In the first episode of Lost, Jack wakes up to find a chaotic scene on the beach, with people scrambling every which way in panic among the remains of the downed plane. The survivors start to get to know each other, and develop some hostilities over who was the criminal that was being escorted by the US marshal. Several members of the main cast go on a hike to get the radio transceiver from the plane working, but their call for help is hindered by a message transmitted from somewhere else on the island.

The first thing that caught my eye was the black piece of something lying next to Jack in the very first scene. The closest thing that I can think of is a telescope, but other than that, I have no idea why it's there. It's probably nothing, but I just wanted to point that out.


Upon second viewing, the monster, or "smokey", or the "man in black" snatching the pilot from the plane is more interesting. (By the way, I like the pun with this being the pilot episode and the dead pilot seen at the end of the first part). Now that we know more of what the man in black actually is, we can draw some conclusions about the attack. It's important to note that the man in black does not attack anybody but the pilot in this episode. Jack, Charlie, and Kate run for their lives, but there is never any clear indication that the monster is after them. I think the plane is the key. Perhaps the man in black wanted to see if the plane was still operational, and the pilot was in the way.



Score: 10

Best Quote: "Guys, where are we?"

Best Moment: Locke smiles at Claire with an orange in his mouth

WTF Moment: The Losties find a polar bear

B5: The Gathering

Now it's time to start the plunge into Babylon 5. These reviews will be a bit different and may discuss more of the content because this is my first time through Babylon 5. The same goes for the Battlestar Galactica ones which will begin next week.

However, let's get into the episode. The series opens with a voice over of a guy with a thick accent that explains some of the back story. It is the year 2257, and humans have progressed to the point where they are interacting with a multitude of aliens from other worlds on a daily basis. There is, however, great tension between the five major alliances that dominate this space. The Earth Alliance has fought a recent war against the Minbari Federation, and there is a similar conflict between the Narn and the Centauri. There are also the Vorlons, who I'm guessing are like the Breen from Star Trek. We don't really know much about them yet, but their policies appear to be strict and unforgiving. Wow, that's a lot of names to take in at one time. Luckily, we have pictures to get some of these guys straight.

Centauri(below) ------------------ Narn(left), Minbari(right)

Vorla

Anyway, Babylon 5 is a newly built station in neutral space where species can reside in hopes of peace among the various races. It is the fifth in a series of stations, the first three having been sabotaged and destroyed and the fourth mysteriously disappearing just after it was launched. In many ways this show reminds me of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which also took place aboard a space station, and involved a variety of races trying to deal with each other.

In the beginning portion of the episode, we get to see the ambassadors that make up the Advisory Council, which is kind of like a United Nations in space, settle on the station. They are Jeffrey Sinclair, the Commander of the station crew, from Earth, G'Kar from the Narn Regime, Deleen from the Minbari Federation, and Londo Mollari from the Centauri Republic.

Additionally, the station crew, who are serving under Commander Sinclair, are first introduced in this episode. At least so far, the characters seem fairly uninteresting and naive. Sinclair seems like the stereotypical, new man to the job Commander, mostly because we don't see much of his back story and he doesn't do anything spectacular. Lieutenant Commander Laurel Takashima seems to spend a lot of time controlling the bridge, which seems nice. It's refreshing to see a woman in a high command position like that every once in a while, but it seems like the actor is trying way too hard to set herself apart from the rest of the crew. Her voice continually changes pitch and appears separated, which doesn't seem like it should matter much at first, but it just gets cornier the more she talks. The rest of the characters don't seem to have that much personality, at least at this point in the game. I guess that's fine as long as we get some development in later episodes.

The main plot for the episode begins when the Vorlon Kosh falls ill shortly after arriving on the station. Medical Officer Benjamin Kyle determines that he was poisoned, which begins an investigation on the station that divides the races. Sinclair is blamed for it after Lyta, the telepathic crew member, reveals in a mind scan that he was the one who Kosh last saw before blacking out. Sinclair is to be deported to the Vorlon Empire, but it is soon discovered that the suspect is using a changeling net to disguise themselves as various people. They eventually catch the culprit, and it's enough to persuade the Vorlons to stop threatening the station.

Although this series shows promise so far in its execution and story line, I don't believe that it was a very effective opening to the show. The consummate pilot should develop an intriguing storyline through some major character establishment and conflict, and also be interlaced with action sequences and humor that catches the attention of the average viewer. The Gathering had some humor and action(albeit filled with cringeworthy CGI), but the plot didn't really develop that much, and was not intriguing enough too get me excited for subsequent episodes.

Score: 4

Best Quote: "Would you like to be conscious or unconscious during the mating?"

Best Moment: That hyperspace vortex thing is kinda cool.

P.S. Sorry that there aren't many pics for this one. I had formatting issues...