Author: tederick
Want more posts like these, straight to your inbox?
-
From A To Bond: Die Another Day
Which one is this? The one where modern action-movie Bond reverts back to being stupid space-laser Bond. Who’s who in this one? Brosnan (Bond); Dench (M); Cleese (Q); Bond (Moneypenny). Where did you first encounter this one? In theatres, on release in 2002. Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? Toby Stephens as…
-
From A To Bond: Diamonds Are Forever
Which one is this? The Vegas diamond caper. Who’s who in this one? Connery (Bond); Lee (M); Llewelyn (Q); Maxwell (Moneypenny); Burton (Leiter). Where did you first encounter this one? On TV when I was twelve. Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? In spite of being killed in the teaser, it turns…
-
From A To Bond: Casino Royale
Which one is this? The reboot. Who’s who in this one? Craig (Bond); Dench (M); Wright (Leiter). Where did you first encounter this one? On release to theatres in 2006. Who’s the bad guy, and what does he want? Mads Mikkelsen as the villainous Le Chifre, who weeps blood and wants to use the poker…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “When the Bough Breaks”
“The legend will die, but the people will live.” I get this episode mixed up with its predecessor, “Too Short a Season;” they both deal with the notion of age in one way or another, and they both have particularly generic Star Trek titles. This is the one, though, where Wesley and the kids get…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “Too Short a Season”
“Annie, with the golden hair.” One can admire “Too Short a Season” for its ambition, certainly, being a story about a nonogenarian admiral who ages backwards, Benjamin Button-style, to respond to an old threat. One can admire Clayton Rohner’s performance, too, as the actor strips away layer after layer of arthritic body language with surprising…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “11001001”
“You got that straight, slim. Too real is too right.” Few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation have benefited from the blu-ray upgrade as completely as “11001001,” which also happens to arguably be the first season’s best episode; that it is chock-a-block with magnificent visual effects is beside the point, but a nice bonus…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “Angel One”
“Blogging the Next Generation” returns today after a one-week TIFF 2012 break, and now moves weekly, posting on Tuesdays, for the remainder of the series. At the advice of my brother, I’m also now incorporating a new feature: Enterprise ratings! See below. “On Kabatris I had to wear furs to meet with the leadership council……
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “Datalore”
“Are you prepared for the kind of death you’ve earned, little man?” For an episode that is generally well-remembered and which ceded Star Trek: The Next Generation one of its most popular recurring characters in Data’s evil duplicate, Lore, “Datalore” is rather preposterously written and scarcely hangs together at all as a final episode. Were…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “The Big Goodbye”
“Civility, gentlemen. Always civility.” Oh yeah. This one. Everyone speaks highly of “The Big Goodbye,” and it won all sorts of awards and regularly turns up on lists of the best episodes of Star Trek of all time. It kicked off The Next Generation’s fascination with the holodecks – their nature, their malfunctions (malfunctions so…
-
Blogging the Next Generation: “Haven”
“Unlike some people, I am in growth.” Deanna Troi was one of the series’ largest ongoing problems – certainly, to hear the writers tell it; and certainly, I agree, in watching. Like all of TNG’s principal characters I remain doggedly attached to the good Counselor, but it’s hard to ignore the sheer arbitrariness of the…