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Category: Television

[VIDEO] Star Trek: Strange New Worlds First Episode

[VIDEO] Star Trek: Strange New Worlds First Episode

Published by R. K. Bentley on May 15, 2022

For those who don’t have Paramount Plus, the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is available on YouTube for free and is embedded below.

While Captain Pike, Spock and Number One along with the Enterprise were introduced in the second season of Discovery, you don’t need to have watched those episode to enjoy this episode. Would it help? Sure. Second season of Discovery is when they started rightening the ship so to speak. And there’s an episode or two in there that covers Pike’s accident that was mentioned in the original series episode, The Cage.

The first two episodes I’ve seen has got the Star Trek: TOS-vibe down (minus the sexism from the 1960’s Television Standards & Practices) and is family friendly so if you were turned off by Discovery, you’ll find the tone of SNW to your liking.

[Television Review] Mr Robot Pilot + video

Published by R. K. Bentley on June 11, 2015

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The video below is the pilot for Mr Robot in it’s entirety, is completely legal and should be watched since it’s a good pilot.

Mr Robot stars Rami Malek as Elliot, a cyber-security expert by day and by night he’s trying to keep his demons at bay. Demons like men following him that may or may not be real according to his shrink, Krista Gordon played by Gloria Ruben. Krista’s problems are just one of many plot lines in the pilot. The majority of the pilot concerns Elliot’s company providing cyber security for a company with the same icon as Enron and for the rest of the pilot is known as Evil Corp.
Elliot knows a lot about people but can’t really interact with them as well as he should until one day during a emergency at work he finds a file that leads him to one of his demons, Mr Robot, played by Christian Slater. Mr Robot leads him down the rabbit hole about the secret war between his group and Evil Corp.
I found Mr Robot to be a very good show. The hacking isn’t Hollywood it looks real enough. It has good direction and the characters were well rounded and hopefully Christian Slater will get a show that can last more than a season. This is his second espionage show after Breaking In and Mind Games. With the exception of guest staring on Archer he’s starting to become the male version of Summer Glau: television series kryptonite.
My minor quibble I had with it was trying to figure out why this isn’t The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo TV show. The English adaptation of the movie was perfect even if it didn’t do bang at the box office. Translating the concept of a bi-sexual, woman white hat hacker sticking it to the man doesn’t take much. Replacing Sweden with New York or San Fransisco isn’t that far of a stretch, either.
Mr Robot will be debuting on USA on 6/24 and so long as it can keep it’s production quality high it shouldn’t have any problems lasting a few seasons.

[Doctor Who] The Night of the Doctor

Published by R. K. Bentley on November 15, 2013

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Rob Callahan pretty much covered this in his post. I figure I’d post about it since I’ve been busy with NaNoWrimo…
The Doctor Who 50th Anniversary is now one week away and according to the trailers focuses on the Time War.
The Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks has been the one fixed point since the new series started almost eight years ago. Originally used to give the series a clean start without at the time forty years worth of backstory to catch up on the fixed point is now front and center.
This off-scene event has brought up the who, what, why and how. There was some vague dialogue from Rassilion about the Doctor having the “moment”.
Sure, the comics have filled in the gaps and after several minutes of wikipedia searching the “moment” is weapon that can erase people from time and space. Pieces of this moment are scattered all through out Doctor Who lore starting with a De-Mat Gun which brings us all the way back to the Invasion of Time with Sontarans and Doctor #4 and Leela.
Whew.
I’d complain about the gaping holes in Amazon Instant Videos from seasons 13-15 of Doctor Who but I digress…
The good news is BBC did a prequel to fill in the blanks between Doctor #8, The Time War and Doctor #9.
It features Doctor #8 and name checks many companions from the Big Finish Production radio plays that Paul McGann has voiced over the years.
It is 7 minutes of gloriousness.
Now, in order to enjoy this you must: A. Remember the 2hr Fox TV Movie from 1996 featuring Doctor #7 to #8 and then B. remember The Brain of Morbius with Doctor #4 and Sarah Jane Smith.

The Sisterhood of Karn and their elixir of life.
This video brings up the elephant in the room regarding the Doctor’s regenerations.
How many does he actually have left? The Vailyard, who? Did rebooting the universe reboot his regenerations? Do we actually count any of the Sarah Jane tv show saying he’ll live forever?
The funny thing is I almost miss the older seasons where they gave you dribs and drabs but nothing concrete unless necessary.
I think in a post-X-Files/LOST television world a shows mythology may be too much a burden. Like a reset button is needed no matter what.
Having survived the 80’s/90’s/00’s of comic bookdom I’d normally roll my eyes at the reset button, instead I’ll roll my eyes at the fact I can’t watch every single episode of Doctor Who on Amazon Instant Video.
Personally, my money is on the Timelords coming back from their fixed moment, go back to being the stuffy shirts they were and letting the Doctor go off on his own while backhanding complimenting him for his service by extending his regenerations.
Simple. Short. Sweet just in time for his next regeneration.

[#doctorwho] The rise of the twelfth will be televised.

Published by R. K. Bentley on August 1, 2013

spacetardis
“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a Question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered. The Question is just “Doctor Who?””
So the big news of the weekend is BBC and BBC America will be doing a live show to announce the actor playing the twelfth Doctor. At 2pm ET we will know who takes over Matt Smith’s shoes!
My mother is happier than the rest of you, trust me.
Everyone else remember four years ago when we just got a picture? Like this one?
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Don’t get me wrong I love the fact that BBC/BBC America’s advertising machine has gotten up the speed. I’m wondering if we’re reaching Apple Keynote levels of hysteria. Or is Hall H without the lines?
It should come as no surprise the Doctor has a randomizer, er, reality distortion field.
The Time Lord’s golden handcuffs are tighter than most, I fear. Having nothing to do with the actor/actress but more to do with the writers and the fact this is still considered a children’s show.
When this new season, the new Doctor and the writing staff debut I’m going to give them a chance but if this next season turns out like last season then we got problems.
Having seen Matt Smith twice during The Nerdist’s SDCC Podcast he seemed to have his feet on the ground.
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He was the nicest to people from recording someone’s marriage proposal to donating to a fan who had had her wallet and bags stolen.
SDCC - Robert Bentley -- 2013-07-22.jpg
As Smith’s era comes to a close I think his seasons flowed better than the end of Tennant’s even if I liked Tennant’s portrayal more than Smith’s. Tennant’s truncated final season was okay with the season finale making up for it. It’s a pity his era didn’t get the advertising push Smith’s is receiving right now.
Here’s hoping the next regeneration goes smoother than fan reaction when the 50th Anniversary Trailer was not released after SDCC.

[Web Series] Video Game High School Season 2…

Published by R. K. Bentley on July 26, 2013

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The Guild has shown year after year that if you create, finance and stream it the they will watch. Under the Geek & Sundry banner they’ve partnered with Youtube to bring out content that is refreshing to say the least.
There have been other web series as well, Standard Action, Freddie W’s Rocketjump series of shorts that is essentially ten to fifteen minutes worth of an action movie. Halo’s Forward Unto Dawn was a web series on a big budget. And let’s not forget granddaddy Red Vs. Blue.
While The Guild is focused on the massive multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) Video Game High School embraces console gaming.
The cast of characters is occupied with different genres from first person shooters (FPS) to Racing to Music. Each episode had just enough drama and pixel violence thrown in to keep me occupied during SDCC.
It’s great to see RPGs and cart racing will be covered in Season 2. It be nice to see RTS make an appearance.
The length of the episodes has been expanded upon as well from under ten minutes to thirty so it’s more like a television show.
Season 1 can be found here while Episode 1 of Season 2 just dropped this morning.

[#sdcc] A #browncoat cosplay…

Published by R. K. Bentley on July 20, 2013

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All the way back at Emerald City Con I decided I was going to cosplay.
Cosplay meaning to dress up as a character. It’s like Halloween without the candy.
This brings up several questions: 1. Who? 2. How much is this going to cost? 3. Exactly how hot are you going to get?
I decided on Captain Malcolm Reynolds played by Nathan Fillion from Firefly/Serenity because of simplicity and because I liked the character.
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Continue reading[#sdcc] A #browncoat cosplay…