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...

VOY: Memorial

The schedule says that I should be doing a Battlestar Galactica review here, but because it's Memorial Day and I'm tired from attending grad parties all day, I'll be writing a brief review on the Star Trek: Voyager episode Memorial. If I ever run through the Voyager series I'll be able to do a more in-depth review on this episode, but for now I just wanted to share my thoughts on this one.

After returning from an away mission to retrieve Dilithium, Tom Paris, Harry Kim, and Neelix begin having hallucinations of a bloody battle on an alien planet. Soon people across the entire ship being having symptoms that are indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder. It turns out that the crew have had new memories implanted by a monument within range of Voyager that has been equipped with a synaptic transmitter. The actual event happened over 300 years before Voyager got there, but it was the aliens' intent that the massacre be remembered by literally placing memories into the brains of people who happen to pass by. After some deliberation, Janeway decides that a warning buoy be placed to warn unsuspecting crews.

Tom Paris discovers "Lost"

I think this is a cool idea for an episode, and it really makes you think about how we should remember and learn from mistakes in the past, especially those that deal with war. The actors also seem way more interested in giving a convincing performance, although some of it is over-the-top.

Score: 8

Best Quote: "It was a shame that we had to cut the lecture short, but the warp core overloaded and then the Borg invaded and we were all assimilated."

Best Moment: Neelix holding Tuvok at bay in the mess hall.

TZ: Where is Everybody

Before you read this review, or any subsequent reviews on the Twilight Zone, I highly recommend that you view the actual episode first. The most fulfilling part about watching the Twilight Zone is anticipating the twist ending that more or less explains everything that was going on in the episode. These reviews will contain spoilers about the endings, so if you care about that stuff, then go watch the episode first.

After the famous Twilight Zone intro and opening music, we see a man walking down a road. He looks slightly confused as he enters a small cafe. He calls for the bartender, only to find that nobody is there. In fact, when he enters Hill Valley(not really, but it's the same set as Back to the Future), he finds the town completely deserted. He also reveals that he has no idea who he actually is.

Does this mean that Marty McFly was in the Twilight Zone?

The main part of the episode involves him wandering around Hill Valley, continually telling himself that he's having a nightmare and that he just needs to wake up. He thinks he sees a woman in a car, but it's just a mannequin. He tries to dial a number in the phone booth, but it doesn't work. It's a really eerie thought. If you suddenly found yourself as the last man on Earth, how would you entertain yourself? How would you keep yourself sane? The man in this story ends up talking to himself through mirrors, messing with things behind desks, and even playing a solo game of tic tac toe.

Life before Solitaire

A few odd occurrences really pushes him towards the edge. He first finds a cigar still smoking in a police station, then a clue that leads him to believe that he's in the air force, and a movie theater that lights up and spontaneously starts playing movies. He becomes more and more paranoid until we reach the climax of the story and it is revealed that he was just hooked up to some virtual simulation.

Apparently the machine was supposed to simulate being enclosed in a shuttle on the way to the moon. The machine would gave him nutrition and other things he needed to survive, while the people in the real world monitored his progress. The town was just a delusion that the man had while his mind started to go crazy without any social interaction.

This episode was an excellent start to the Twilight Zone. It developed the creepy, dreamy feel that was to become the standard for future Twilight Zone episodes, and the acting was pretty good. The only complaint that I have for this episode is the twist. Why do they have to send only one person to the moon? Why not a group of people? Still, it's interesting to think that in only 10 years after this episode aired, man had accomplished the goal of landing on the moon.

Score: 8

Best Quote: "Next time it won't just be a box in a hanger, will it?"

Best Moment: The man runs into a mirror

Cheesy 60s Moment: The man yells "Where is everybody!"

ST:TOS The Cage

So here we are at the first episode of Star Trek ever produced. Technically The Cage is not part of Star Trek canon because NBC rejected it and it never became the pilot. They made the daring move of ordering a second pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, that actually began the series. I decided to review The Cage this week anyway because it is nevertheless science fiction.

The most interesting thing about this episode is how different it is from the Star Trek we know and love. For one thing, the characters are completely different. Captain Pike is in Kirk's place, and is played by Jeffrey Hunter instead of William Shatner. The bridge crew is less diverse than it is in the real Star Trek, and only a few cast members, like Leonard Nimoy and Majel Barrett, appear in later episodes.

The bridge is also a bit less colorful, and the uniforms are somewhat different. The crew also carry different looking weapons.

I'm okay with most of the original elements that they later changed for the real pilot, except for the characters. The characters in The Cage are mostly boring and not very interesting to watch. They don't quite have the appeal that the Kirk, Spock, and Bones team have on screen.

It is logical to suppress all emotion, except when dealing with blue leaves

But let's get to the actual plot of the episode. The Enterprise crew picks up an 18 year old distress call, and they find that it's originating from a planet that doesn't appear to have much on it except for a few forms of plant life and a few scientists who were on an expedition. A group of aliens with pulsing veins on their huge heads capture Pike and imprison him in a cell with one of the surviving scientists, named Vina. They have the ability to create illusions, so they put Pike and Vina into several virtual situations in attempt to get Pike interested in Vina. Their main goal is to study how humans of the opposite gender interact. The aliens are surprised to learn that the humans hate being imprisoned. Huh, what a thought.

Despite their intelligence and the "illusion torture" that Pike receives when he does not comply with the situation, Pike resists and eventually takes one of the aliens hostage, using him to escape.

Back on the surface of the planet, the aliens reveal Vina in her actual, deformed look under all the illusions. Vina decides to stay on the planet with a virtual Pike, while the Enterprise crew leaves.

Yeah, 18 years without Proactive will do that do you

This episode feels more like a 60s movie than a Star Trek episode. The plot is original and actually pretty interesting, but it just doesn't work for a pilot episode. The characters are pretty bland and don't do anything to make them deserve any special attention. Spock is actually the most interesting character, but he is portrayed differently than in other episodes. In fact, the main reasons that NBC rejected the pilot was because Spock was not what they had wanted him to be, and the story was too cerebral(no pun intended) and slow-moving for a 60s audience. If this episode had aired as the pilot, I probably wouldn't have watched any other episodes.

Score: 4

Best Quote: "Sometimes, a man will tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor."

Best Moment: Pike taking the alien hostage.

Red Shirt Deaths: 0. Red shirts don't exist in this episode.

Hello!

Hello and welcome to The Sci-Fi Expedition. So, what exactly is this? Well, it's an attempt to relive some of the Science Fiction television shows that have passed us by within the past 50 years or so. I'm talking about shows like Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Twilight Zone, etc. that are difficult to catch on television nowadays. I'll also be including some more recent shows such as Stargate: Atlantis and Lost.

By "reliving" a show, I mean that I will be watching every episode from start to finish, writing up a little review on each one, and giving it a score from 1 to 10. You can think of the scale as looking something like this:

10 - Amazing
9 - Awesome
8 - Great
7 - Cool
6 - Good
5 - Average
4 - Meh
3 - Poor
2 - Bad
1 - Complete and Utter Garbage

The shows will obviously change as I complete them, but initially the schedule will be:
Fridays-Lost
Saturdays-Star Trek(The Original Series)
Sundays-Twilight Zone
Mondays-Battlestar Galactica(reimagined)
Wednesdays-Babylon 5

So, first up is Star Trek TOS. If you're willing, feel free to join in :). Until then, see ya!