The best episode of Season Six. One of the Stargate Top Ten possibly. Not a lot of action in this episode, in fact none. There was not one explosion the entire episode and it was still great. Why? It was just so damned interesting. I’m so glad to see they’ve come up with an intriguing storyline like this, there really ARE good writers sitting around that table. Now the question is, will they run with it? Season Seven is all about the Ancients…

If you haven’t seen ‘Frozen’, well for starters you’re a git. It’s cool, dammit. But not in the usual Stargate kind of cool way. In the early seasons I used to really like the parts where Daniel would waffle on for ages about the history of ancient civilisations on earth and how that related to the Stargate lore. I’m sure there are fans who love the bits when Sam is waffling about maths and physics and whatnot, and there are some eps to tickle that fancy, Frozen is for the lore geeks like me. It’s hard to explain why. Here is a taste:

Sam: “So you’re saying this woman is…?”
Janet: “I’m saying she’s another example of an advanced stage of the potential human evolutionary process.”
Sam: “Leading to what?”
Janet: “Antarctic cod can live in water so cold, other fish would develop ice crystals in their blood. Now they’ve had 40 million years or so to adapt to the change in temperature and they’ve developed this protein that acts like anti-freeze…”
Sam: “They’re fish.”
Janet: “Given enough time, evolution can do some pretty amazing things. Look we know that humans can become much more powerful beings. We’ve seen it happen with Daniel.”
Sam: “Uh huh, with the help of other powerful beings.”
Janet: “Yes…we think this woman might predate human evolution on Earth by 50 million years…”
Sam: “Yeah, but that would put her behind us on the evolutionary timeline…not way ahead.”
Janet: “Unless…”
Sam: “Unless…our evolution isn’t the first time it’s happened. That’s not big, Janet…that’s huge!”
Janet: “Okay, look, it’s just a theory and we certainly don’t have any hard evidence, yet…”
Sam: “Yeah, yeah, but if you’re right…this woman could be part of the race that first invented the ‘gate.”
Janet: “One stage of that development, anyway.”
Sam: “A living Ancient…”
Janet: “And we look just like her…”

OK, that doesn’t really do it any sort of justice and I am ruining my case here if anything, but my point is (though if you are the type who just watches this show to sit back and watch stuff blow up you may not agree) that to my mind this is an extra nifty episode. Jonas even manages to be less annoying than usual. I won’t say endearing, but coming dangerously close to likeable. What am I saying?!!

Other moments of entertaining dialogue:

Janet: “Doctor.”
Dr. Woods: “Doctor.”
Dr. Osborn: “Major.”
Sam: “Doctor.”
Dr. Woods: “Major.”
Janet: ” Doctor.”
Jack: “Alright…that’s enough.”

Can someone please tell me who the actress playing Ayiana is please? I’ve seen this girl in something before and it is bugging the hell out of me not being able to figure out what it is. It could just be the resemblance to the portrayal of Leeloo (Fifth Element) but she’s so pretty, she must have been in other stuff.

I must say, I thought it uncharacteristic for Jack to accept taking a symbiote after he has been harping on for six years about how much as despises them. It seems odd for a mid-season episode to finish on a cliffhanger like that, but I suppose it is necessary to explain the arc developments. Tune in next week for Jack the Tok’ra. Hehe I can just see him in one of those sandy tunic things…

All alone, sad and alienated from everyone in Los Angeles, can Fred rise to the challenge and free the minds of her friends? Well, of course she can, but how will she do it? Especially if she’s being pursued by her very happy but ever so slightly murderous ex-colleagues at Angel Investigations…

And so, for the most part, we’re treated again to most of our favourite characters acting not only unlike themselves, but also in extremely boring ways — with the exception of Connor and Angel’s rendition of ‘Jasmine’ to the tune of ‘Mandy’. In fairness, Amy Acker is able to hold the episode herself, doing a fairly good ‘desperate’, and in general proving herself to be almost as endearing when in danger as Alyson Hannigan.

Meanwhile, in the plot, it turns out once again that it doesn’t take much in this fantasy world for people’s blood to be equivalent. It was a decent revelation though, that was subtly signposted and made sense. Followed of course by a nifty slow motion gunshot.

Ultimately this wasn’t a bad episode as such, just another boring one, with a few pointless moments slipped in to fill it out. I’m not sure what the point of Cordy’s hand moving was, other than to provide a silly cliffhanger over the ad-break. But I hope things pick up soon. And with everyone back to normal, I have some hope that this will in fact happen.

First things first, the new opening credits make me dizzy. Look, that Stargate goes round and round and round… and round… and roooound… and rooooound … BLEAUCGH!! (The sound of Shannon losing her lunch)

Anyway, on to the review.

Season Six picks up a bit from the third episode. ‘Descent’ is slow paced but filled with nifty effects. Well, just the one actually. They flood on of those mothership corridors that all look the same. The underwater scenes were few but cool, and refreshing — I can’t remember seeing something like that on tv since the days of Seaquest DSV. Speaking of Seaquest (well sort of, cos I seem to vaguely recall him starring in that show) creative consultant on Stargate Peter DeLuise appeared as an extra briefly yet again in this episode. I love spotting him, he pops up in the background once every 2 or 3 episodes, its like Where’s Wally.

The episode opens intriguingly, then slows to boredom for most of act one and two, littered every now and then by a few seconds of entertainment. One of these was no doubt a Rick Anderson improvisation: Davis: “Phwoar, that was loud” O’Neill: “What??!”, another is attributed to some writing that seems almost as though the author actually remembers what the writing of the earlier seasons was like, reminiscent of the days when Teal’c was still struggling with the absurdity of some of our earth english phrases: Hammond: “We’ve all been holding out breath down here” Teal’c: “That is most unwise…” and the third moment of entertaining brilliance was the scene which made Jonas out to be a git. Moping that Colonel O’Neill wasn’t letting him play on the big ship, and supposedly oblivious to the fact that Teal’c was also left on the cargo ship strategically, he starts a chat about how the aliens should stick together. The result of this ‘alien conspiracy’ chatter had Teal’c painted as a legend, Jonas as a git, and me having the giggles.

The episode goes back to its intitial interest rating once we hit act three and the drowning starts. They should think about placing Major Davis in imminent danger though. When its Jack and Sam drowning, as it was in this episode, we’re not exactly worried for them. But Major Davis is a delightful addition to any episode (and Descent certainly picks up points for having him around) while at the same time not being an SG-1 member, and therefore possibly expendable. If he had been drowning I would have been on the edge of my seat, as opposed to sitting back thinking ‘nifty underwater sequence’. Just a suggestion for next time, ye olde stargate gods.

The conclusion of the episode? Enough of Jonas saving the day already! I know you silly writers are trying to make us like him, but get over it, it’s never going to happen. He is NOT Daniel Jackson, he is in no way endearing and Corin Nemec plays him almost as cluelessly as Neil Dennis. Stop saving the planet Jonas. I mean it.

Andy:

Excuse me! Can I say a few words here? It’s only fair that as I am now a part owner of this website, I am entitled to a say in everything that goes on around here. Which I intend to take full advantage of. This season of Angel is looking pretty good now, especially when compared to that sorry excuse for a slayer’s season.

Jasmine’s so beautiful! We’re not worthy. All my life I’ve been so empty and it’s over now that we’ve found her. I can’t believe it’s all happening. It looks like Fred will have to be put down, what with her being crazy and all. There’s no other way. It’s too bad she’s evil. I was just beginning to like her.

Tom:

I’ll start this review off with a question. Why, if you’re aware that your TV show generally goes to air with about a minutes clips from previous episodes, would you then write a bizarre scene in which, for no reason at all, your protagonists describe everything that’s happened in the last few episodes? Odd, that.

Anyhow, we’re soon into the meat of the episode, where everyone becomes entranced by the lovely Jasmine. Sadly, most of these scenes are terminally boring. Yes, we get it, they like her. Things become more interesting when an insane, shouting person attempts to go on a rampage, but then, they always do. Meanwhile, Angel tries on a new shirt that has to be seen to be believed, and Jasmine tells them all the story of how she’s a disgruntled former Power that Be. Actually, this explaination was fairly believable and interesting, which was a surprise as I expected the usual dodgy, half-baked explaination.

My problem with this episode is probably that despite how excited by Jasmine the characters seem to be, and the general intriguing nature of her story, her way of life just doesn’t seem that attractive to us. Though my co-reviewer was sufficiently enchanted, I found it rather depressing to see all the characters suddenly reduced to one-note, irritatingly cheery charicatures of their former selves. If we’d seen them enjoying themselves more, and perhaps as relieved that everything was nice and simple as Gunn was two weeks ago, then the audience might have had some small affection for Jasmine.

As it was, I imagine everyone is expecting, as usual, that Jasmine is simply another demon to be killed horribly. And, it seems, Fred is the one to do it. Wesley, much to his annoyance I imagine if he ever comes out of this euphoric state, completely misses his chance to run off with Fred and have a big bonding experience over their shared fear of Jasmine, and instead reports her. The final lonely shot of Fred might have been more exciting if she’d walked further towards the camera through crowds of bowing Jasmine-lovers.

Not a bad episode then, but a rather dull and predictable one. It seems it’s too much to hope for something wildly unexpected to happen this season.

Well what do you know, they DO save the planet. I didn’t see that coming. There are a couple of nice moments to this episode, but unfortunately they don’t outweigh the bad. Neil Dennis is not solely to blame though, today I pin it on the writers.

Seeing some competition for Sam was refreshing. It seems every time Stargate Command is in danger Sam Carter comes up with the plan to save the day, and all on her own, sitting in her little lab. In Redemption Part Two, George must have thought they were in the extra dangerous kind of imminent danger because there was an entire team of scientists (you can tell they were scientists because despite searching for solutions using computers at a military base, they were all handily wearing lab coats) coming up with solutions. If only it weren’t that brat Jonas who came up with the master plan. Also, the ‘science is an art’ speech made for a very nice analogy, or at least I, representing the scientifically challenged portion of Stargate viewers believed so. But that’s about where the good ends.

The writing for every scene between Teal’c, Bra’tac and Rya’k was utter dribble. I’m sure they were saying useful sentences every now and again, but I swear all I could hear was “Hey, lets state the obvious some more to help along our clearly unintelligent audience.” Nothing irks more than television or film unnaturally over-scripting a scene merely for the benefit of over-clarifying the plot. An example being when a character picks up a phone and repeats back everything said by the person they are speaking to, so that the audience can hear both sides of the conversation (“Oh, so you are calling to inform me of the following things…”). If I ever hear Teal’c say “There is little time to waste” amid an already well established time sensitive mission again, I will be personally flying to Vancouver to kick Rick Anderson’s butt. Honestly, that’s what editors are for. Grrr.

Sam’s complete character shift from detesting Dr. McKay, to kissing him goodbye and admitting she was attracted to him was out there. Where did that come from? He’s still an utter twat, dammit! Hmm… I’ll have to attribute that to being on a high from saving the planet yet again.

Having said all that, I am of course glad that SG-1 did indeed save the planet, and the Stargate program, paving the way for some more crap episodes as we await the return of Daniel Jackson like faithful fans. Would someone help me out as to why I decided to start my reviews with the one season that doesn’t feature my favourite character? Oh well, Jonas can’t stay this annoying forever… right?

Ah, Bond films. A guilty pleasure of mine, I have to admit. And in general, I’ve enjoyed the Brosnan films as much as the Connery films, which naturally makes me an outcast from any ‘serious’ Bond discussion. But no one’s going to tell me to shut up here, are they? So I’d better get this reviewed before we put any irritating ‘comment on this review’ boxes on this website. There are a few key elements to a Bond film, so I’ll go through them individually.

Opening Sequence

Nice work. Far better to my mind that of ‘The World is not Enough’, and with a twist ending too. I liked this a lot, but unfortunately it ends with Madonna’s not so good title song. I quite enjoy the song in a general level, and I’ve seen it put to good use in other places, but it just doesn’t work here. For a start, it doesn’t have enough of a recognisable melody to run through the rest of the film, which is a pity as I really enjoy it when that happens. A good example is the theme from k.d.lang’s ‘Surrender’ that pervaded ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’.

Action

Generally good, with exciting stuff in the opening sequence and an excellent sword fight between Bond and Graves that is one of the high points of the film. However the ball is dropped somewhat at the end when the whole thing degrades into a punch-up between the two, with Graves taking rather longer to get around to using his cool electro-zapping gear than I would if I were fighting a cool super agent.

It happens.

Girls

I should probably mention Halle Berry’s entrance here — it can’t be denied that she is a very well put-together woman. But acting-wise, she doesn’t seem to be putting that much effort in. In fairness to her, some of her dialogue is rather lame — her meeting with Bond being a prime example. She does however get a good fight at the end that almost makes up for the snorefest going on elsewhere with Bond. I’ve been puzzled by the peculiar publicity her character garnered however. “An equal to Bond, an agent from another country”. This is no first. Have people forgotten ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ and the inimitable Michelle Yeoh? I can’t remember enough about ‘The Spy who Loved Me’ but I suspect there was a dynamic female spy in that too…

Rosamunde Pike comes across as a rather superior Bond girl, and not just because she’s cuter (which she is). Her amusing comments on Bond’s charms and subsequent conquering by them were very enjoyable, as were her icy exchanges with Bond and Jinx.

Bond

Brosnan is looking fairly assured in the role, though probably starting to approach the ‘too old’ stage. I give him one more. And he needs to watch his weight a bit. 14 months of torture doesn’t normally leave you in such… healthy shape, but then, he is Bond. He remains a cross between a fun loving Bond who glories in the action and an angry emotional Bond that will kill with much vengeance if necessary. Sadly he is not offered much in the way of closure concerning his ordeal at the start of the film, and the movie suffers for this. Indeed, after the first half things are almost Roger Moore-esque, Bond included. A less important point is the editing out of his joyous expression at performing a cool stunt in his Aston Martin on the ice. It was in the trailer, but doesn’t appear in the actual film, which is a shame. One of my favourite parts of ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’ was his obvious enjoyment of the carpark chase, and I like the idea that Bond gets off on his crazy action as much as we (theoretically) do.

I also wasn’t particularly impressed by his cajoling Jinx’s frozen body to wake up. I like my Bond just a little less flappable than that.

Q

John Cleese fits perfectly into the role, with dutiful nods to his late predecessor, Desmond Llwellyn. The Q scene in fact becomes probably one of the best parts of the film, and is the funniest one since ‘Goldeneye’.

Plot

Hee hee.

Oh, you’re serious?

Well, things aren’t as solid as they were in ‘The World is not Enough’. There’s this guy with diamonds, and he uses them to make a big destructo ray in the sky, with apparently no complaints from any authorities. I do hope people can’t really do that. There were many complaints about the portrayal of North Korean baddies in this film, but considering that we are also offered the villain’s wise, cautious father as a postive portrayal of a North Korean makes this all seem a bit odd. The suggestion of the film seems to be that it was the English influences on Graves that made him peculiar in any case.

Overall, I found myself loving the first half of the film, and being intensely bored by the second half — reminding me somewhat of ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’. It’s a shame, because after raising the stakes at the start, they could have taken this movie anywhere they wanted. What a pity they decided to take it to ‘Moonraker’.

DVD Review

Bond’s first 2-Disc set! There’s a few informative documentaries. It’s embarassing seeing all the effort that went into the opening surfing sequence, when you know that the audience completely forgot it ten minutes later. Somewhat more interesting is the information about the ice-based car chase. What with warming temperatures, and driving at breakneck speed across 30 centimetres of ice, it seems a lot of risk to go to simply to make a Bond film. On the warmer side of things, there’s a fairly well publicised ‘easter egg’ in which we are shown Halle Berry emerging from the water… from all three angles, on loop. Presumably this to allow all the Bond fans to compare it frame by frame to Ursula Andress’ similar scene in ‘Doctor No’.

‘Die Another Day’ is also the first Bond film to have Bond give an audio commentary. Pierce Brosnan and Rosamunde Pike both provide fairly interesting insights, but sadly were recorded in separate rooms. Pike tends to gush about the whole experience in places, but she’s so damn cute I really don’t care. Brosnan is worthwhile too, speaking of how sometimes he’d like to do an all out, gory, sexy, R-rated Bond film. He also appears to have an orgasm when seeing the ice-bound car chase.

I’ve not yet heard the director’s commentary, so I’ll update the review at that point. But so far, it seems a decent release.

Ah… A new layout, and more importantly some new reviews to go with it! Hopefully in the future Andy and I will catch up with our Angel and Buffy reviews… I’ve got Gosford Park to review later also… I hope everyone enjoys the shiny new design. The more observant of you may have noticed a lack of blog updating recently – this will hopefully change when Jackson works out a new system for us.

One of our reviews is by the ever-insightful Jimbo ‘FilmBEAST’ Jones — I recommend his site, which reviews Hong Kong cinema (in an especially accessible way, this week!). I’ll be posting his non-Honkie reviews here for your enjoyment! I myself need to get watching more films. Hopefully I’ll manage to see The Dancer Upstairs this week.

Before I go, my friend Carol offers a one-word review of Bruce Almighty: Crap.

OK, not really. Life’s reasonably relaxing in fact, if a touch depressing in places. One bright side is the move to a new and exciting server, however — as a result I’ve spent the last day working on a completely new layout for grapefruit — involving no javascript whatsoever which is nice. Well, apart from the top navigation bar anyhow. Hopefully you’ll see the results shortly.

It’s heartening to see the percentage of people viewing our site that use Internet Explorer going up. Well, not really — you should all be using Mozilla Firebird if you’re on Windows — but it does mean that people are looking at the site who aren’t the actual reviewers. Still, we need to publicise the site a tad more I think…

I’ll be playing in the Leonardian Players’ production of Company next week, and you should all come and see it if physically possible — Wednesday to Saturday, email us if you want details.

This season continues to narrowly avoid the crap rating. At times it comes close, with several lame episodes strung together. But then they show a great episode and one thinks that this could be a good season after all. Unfortunately it’s had to tell if these episodes are actually very good or only average, as even fools gold looks real when all you’ve got to compare it to is sludge.

That being said, I believe that this one comes up with the goods, thanks mainly to Andrew. While Buffy, Slayer of the Vampyre, has been playing things fairly straight recently, Andrew’s been the main comedic source for most of this season. He’s been very amusing but has had a small role in previous episodes. The main plot of this episode focuses on Andrew and helps explain some of his recent questionable decisions. His outsider view (and imagination) leads some pretty funny scenes with the others.

Despite the majority of jokes being early in the episode and ending with some very serious moments, there never feels any problem with the transistion between the two. Problems with transistions have been irritating in previous episodes where characters switch from being concerned about personal issues (when the plot is about them) to the same old character with no hint that they remember the trouble they had last week. I feel a few little hints of how their character is coping each week would bring more life to the series. It would also help spread Willow’s plot out. Anya’s been fairly lucky in this regard getting material to work with most weeks. Seeing her struggle from week to week makes her more likeable. But generally the characters hang around in the background during the group scenes doing nothing until it’s their turn to say a line, which are doled out fairly evenly amongst the group. I guess this can’t be helped though when there is 50 people in the house. It’s fairly unlikely to find a room with less than a dozen people in it, but sometimes the lines are distributed in an arbitrary manner which seems unnatural.

Then there’s the usual muck: Buffy’s fighting skills have improved. There’s the unusually clever decision to kill a vampire with a crossbow, instead of the regular hassle of beating it up and she also takes down several cultists but these rarely cause trouble. Willow and Thingy continue their odd relationship. Anya used her one quote very early in the show but gets a scene to resolve her feelings with Xander, with both of them managing to make Xander look the least gutless he’s been since before the wedding. The principal is still looking to dust Spike, but only if it’s convenient.

And a couple of problems: It’s odd that Andrew can now read a language that previously he thought were only were squiggles. It never occured to him that the squiggles might have some sort of meaning, yet he’s (maybe unconsciously) able to manipulate the vanity of those around him for his video. They seem to be very different levels of perceptiveness. The Seal is constantly refered to as bad, without making the distinction that the seal is actually holding the evil at bay (although leaking). Obviously it’d be better with no seal and everything patched up properly, but I feel that the seal is copping a lot of unecessary flack.