pat664422 Reviews

Fallout: The Beginning (2024) Season 1, Episode 8

Otherwise great first season let down by it's finale

[2/10 · 7 May 2024]

I agree with the few others who found the writing greatly lacking in the finale. I played the games, but came into this show with zero expectations given how things are adapted in modern times. However I was very pleasantly surprised with how well this was done, until the finale.

They take some wild turns with characters in this episode. It's just absurd that Vault Tec somehow starts the nuclear war for their own corporate interest - I'm not sure what a company's profit motive is in ending society and its economy.

It seems like they just wanted to turn Hank into a super villain by having him wipe out Shady Sands - then he slithers into the power armor and rises up in the background like the end of the first terminator movie.

Barb, who they presented as a decent person, is suddenly the pitch woman for starting a nuclear apocalypse. It seemed a stretch that her husband could so easily be convinced to spy on his wife. But then it's justified cause she's really Satan.

The writers really stretch the characters at times for the sake of some questionable plot points. They had a great season that didn't need reach so far with such flimsy justifications.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Blaze of Glory (1997) Season 5, Episode 23

Let's ask the guy in the Federation Prison to come save us...

[7/10 · 13 December 2022]

I really enjoy this episode right up until the surprise twist, which at this point in the series starts to feel routine when it's revealed that Eddington has suckered Sisko once again.

When revealed, the whole plot is sort of insane. The remaining Maquis send out a message to get intercepted which they hope will result in Eddington being freed from prison to save them?

The writers have Eddington act all too convincing with how reluctant he is to be a part of this, all the while knowing his wife is depending on him to save her? Please. There's a lot of stretching going on here just for the sake of one last gotcha by Eddington on Sisko.

Sisko was already made to look pretty hapless in their previous contests - he had to poison an entire planet to get him to turn himself in. But even from prison, he can still play Sisko like a fiddle!

I wish the episode had stayed with the more straight forward plot and kept the focus on the characters. It's a great 3/4s of an episode at least!

Star Trek: Discovery: Will You Take My Hand? (2018) Season 1, Episode 15

Closing the book on ST Discovery

[1/10 · 7 August 2022]

I originally watched the pilot episode of this show back when it premiered and saw enough (the character raised on logic mutinying) to not consider paying for the rest.

Recently a friend recommended this show saying it got better during the second half. I already had paramount+ just for Strange New Worlds and finished that, and thought now was the time to give it a second chance. And I was actually enjoying it through the first 3 seasons. But it was further and further downhill from there.

Another reviewer described Discovery as the action of the Abrams movies with the plot twists of the GoT shows, which is very apt in my opinion. And there's very little else to the show. Their writing priority is on their plot twists and special effects scenes and everything else is secondary, including character development and story telling. So it's not even good standalone sci fi for me, let alone something that should be called Star Trek. The friend who recommended this show to me loves Marvel Universe action movies, so it makes sense this works for him.

On a positive note, though I thought Star Trek was dead for me after I watched the first reboot movie, they are thankfully still trying to make an actual Star Trek show in Strange New Worlds. It still has some pretty bad writing and social agenda pushing, but at least half the the first season's episodes were actually creative and entertaining. And Star Trek fans of the TOS, TNG and DS9 variety haven't had anything close to that in a long time.

Star Trek: Discovery: Despite Yourself (2018) Season 1, Episode 10

Rehashing old ideas and even worse new ideas

[2/10 · 5 August 2022]

The entire first season revolves around war - something that hasn't been covered many times before. It now goes to the mirror universe - something DS9 beat to death, but the Discovery show wants to show it can do it worse. The so called captain spelling out how to survive in the alternate universe by acting like bad people sounds more like a conversation in the so-called writing room than realistic dialogue.

One new idea they had, that the main character attacks her captain and mutinies in the first show, was straight up crazy. Even the spore drive, the mycelial network - it's an idea taken from the underground network of forests on earth, but it's been extrapolated to the level of fantasy. Aside from this network's fantastical existence, how the ship actually uses it for travel has never been explained. Warp drive is an actual scientific theory. This spore drive is what someone who on shrooms and watching Cosmos came up.

This is just bad sci-fi and it's sold to us as Star Trek. For good dark, gritty sci-fi, watch the Expanse. It's based on writing that people paid money for before it ever became a show.

Star Trek: Discovery: Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad (2017) Season 1, Episode 7

When will this season hit the bottom

[2/10 · 3 August 2022]

Another episode where Lorca seems to hate his job as a starfleet captain if he has to do anything other than blow up klingons. He is completely unbelievable to me as a starfleet captain.

The party scene looked and sounded like it belonged in a modern day show, not one set hundreds if years into the future. And we return to it again and again.

I gave two stars for the focus on two of the few characters that actually seem like starfleet officers - Burnham's earlier mutiny craziness aside.

Otherwise this is a bad imitation of much better TNG and TOS episodes.

Star Trek: Discovery: Lethe (2017) Season 1, Episode 6

Lorca is a mockery of a Starfleet Captain

[1/10 · 2 August 2022]

Lorca is a mockery of a Starfleet captain. His overwhelming characteristic is obsession and somehow became captain without giving one iota about standards or chain of command. His excuse is always - but we're at war or the end justifies my complete disregard for the starfleet rulebook. No military wins a war if no one in it follows orders, but Lorca thinks he's the exception.

From having the first mutineer join his crew while barely knowing anything about her to sending the admiral who'd force him to step down into harm's way and then leaving her as a prisoner (boy did the sorry writers telegraph her capture was coming).

The Next Generation made single episodes about captains who'd gone off the rails like this - O'Brien's old captain who was obsessed with revenge on the cardassians from our war with them or Riker's old captain obsessed with the ship called Pegasus. Those guys ended up in jail after one episode. Lorca is like them but the regular "captain" of the show. I keep expecting him to killed off, because he seems like just a bad stand-in for an actual Starfleet captain, in the tradition of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or the new Pike.

The X-Files: Babylon (2016) Season 10, Episode 5

This is just getting sad.

[1/10 · 24 July 2022]

It's sad seeing the middle aged Mulder and Scully trying to pull off some banter in the beginning of this episode they used to make look easy, sadder still seeing the writers try to come up with something deep at the end of the episode. The terrorist aspect and the messaging on it are beyond the people running and writing the show at this point, and the Mulder lining dancing was just painful to watch. Young Mulder and Scully add very little. Everything about this show in season 10 is feeling rehashed and tired.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: The Elysian Kingdom (2022) Season 1, Episode 8

So Tidy

[3/10 · 14 July 2022]

Do fathers really give up their daughters so quickly and easily, even when it's what's best for them? That seed gets planted and ripens in about a 5 minute scene. Then the fully grown daughter (who is physically aging even though we're told she'll never die) reappears to validate the decision. So cheap and easy, it was a fairy tale ending for a fairy tale episode.

If they had based more of the episode around the father's efforts failing so that a futility was starting to set in, that would have made the ending a little more natural.

The performance of Chong was the only one to rise to the occasion. She's the standout actor in the series for me thus far. I'd also say Hemmer, but haven't seen enough of him yet.

The X-Files: Improbable (2002) Season 9, Episode 13

Make it stop

[2/10 · 13 July 2022]

The music of the episode is the first deal breaker; it's relentless and very niche.

The second is Reynolds character - that lip syncing scene? The "dancing" scene?? "God" just wants a couple games of checkers with agents before they're killed?

The third is Reyes' character. The writing for her character is not good and the actress doesn't bring a lot of likability to it. When Duchovny would say crazy theories, he understood they sounded crazy. Reyes blathering her random numbers with supposed meanings to the rest of the FBI with a grin on her face just looks completely absurd by comparison. She even says a couple of times her theories don't help the investigation. It's like she's just indulging her hobby instead working on the investigation.

This one is on the level of First Person Shooter for me.

The X-Files: 4-D (2001) Season 9, Episode 4

Attempts at explanations

[3 July 2022]

I think have a partial explanation for Doggett's fix at the end of this episode.

We know Doggett A was following the serial killer in universe A and unknowingly steps through the portal the killer created and enters universe B. At this time the Doggett B who is part of universe B disappears from Reyes' apartment. I believe this is because you can't have two Doggett's in one universe and when he stepped through that portal, the two Doggetts swapped universes.

The "fix" at the however I can't explain. I don't why killing the paralyzed Doggett A brings Doggett B back to universe B. It's kind of a cop out (no pun intended). I think following what they'd established, the only way to swap the Doggett's back would be to have the serial killer open the portal and wheel the paralyzed Doggett through, returning both to their original universes. Monica was dead in that universe A already, so they could have pulled the plug on Doggett and wheeled him through and she wouldn't have been around to miss him in that universe. While that may have been more consistent, I don't think it would have made for a more entertaining episode.

As for why she instantly appears back in her apartment after pulling the plug is because what upset universe B in the first place (Doggett from universe A entering it) has been "corrected", and now it's no longer off on a tangent and back on its original track.

Anyway, even though they sort of took the shortcut to a desirable ending in this episode, I thought it was well done otherwise. Doggett and Reyes displayed some nice chemistry through the episode, especially in her apartment. The serial killer was plenty disturbing and it was nice to see Elwes do something you don't despise.

The X-Files: Badlaa (2001) Season 8, Episode 10

I want some Badlaa after watching this

[1/10 · 15 June 2022]

This is a really bad episode. It made me long for First Person Shooter, the episode I used to consider the worst before this. This guy has two special abilities - to make people see illusions and to kill people by shooting up into their backside. I'm not sure who has it worse, the victim or the murderer. He then somehow pilots the corpse around like he's driving a car. One question comes to mind - how does he breathe in there?

The episode tries to be scary by showing someone talking to his illusory form, and then at the end of interaction shows him in his real form with dramatic music. He's the antithesis of an intimidating character though, so it's just silly.

The only part of the episode that was worth seeing was Scully admit she was trying to see things through Moulder's eyes, but couldn't. I just wish that scene hadn't been this debacle of an episode.

The X-Files: Closure (2000) Season 7, Episode 11

The end of the road

[10/10 · 22 May 2022]

At first I didn't know what to make of the ending of Closure. But upon rewatching both parts of this episode, the supernatural ending and closure for Moulder's search for his sister's fate was just about perfect.

It's a show that often has supernatural elements - to give some sort of realistic ending where he simply finds a grave or the physical remains of Samantha would have just been very ordinary/anticlimactic and all too realistic. We can get that reality every day in the news of the real world. If you haven't had enough of that yet, give it time.

Seeing the tragic story of his sister's life end with her being rescued and in a sheltered, protected place of happiness was an uplifting end after their suffering to this point. I love how from he diary, he read she hoped to one day see his face. When they have their reunion, she looks up and touches his face. It was a moment of mutual happiness.

The music for this final scene amplified the emotions with our arrival at the end of this road. I hadn't heard it before, and I'll never hear it again without envisioning this scene.

Mr. Robot: eps2.4_m4ster-s1ave.aes (2016) Season 2, Episode 6

Still here but wondering why

[1/10 · 12 December 2019]

I've watched season 2 this far only because season 1 was so good. The writers don't seem to know what to do since the hackers accomplished their mission in season 1.

Most of season 2 has been spent inside Elliot's head or introducing new characters that are annoying (FBI woman) or don't advance the main story (evil website guy and Leon) or compromising Angela. The writing has dropped off a cliff since the end of the first season.

The only good part of season 2 for me has been seeing Darlene and Elliot coming up with the grand scheme of season 1. The beginning of this episode is the low point thus far of season 2. A 15 minute diversion that doesn't advance anything. I was waiting for it to end so something might meaningful might happen in the show's reality.

It's getting harder to keep faith as this season continues (to go nowhere).

The Ring Two (2005)

Uncreative rehashing of the first movie

[4/10 · 19 March 2005]

I did not expect the sequel to live up to the first movie, especially since a different director was involved, but even with lowered expectations I was still disappointed that they weren't able to produce a better experience to honor the first movie.

The sequel doesn't really add anything to the story of the first and some parts of the plot are essentially copied and redone from the first movie (sadly, these are the better parts of the movie). It left me with the feeling that most of the sequel could have been included on the original movie's DVD as deleted scenes or alternate scenes. The new director takes away a lot of the frightening power of the Samara character by showing her so frequently throughout the movie that I was used to seeing her towards the end. The original director got a lot more out of the scary scenes of the first movie, but he also had a good story to work with.

I do not recommend this movie to anyone that enjoyed the first. More of the same with less execution just isn't very satisfying.