Name: Dex-Star
950. A Little Man-to-Man Talk
REVIEW: Steven Wilson's one-shot makes use of past continuity in a fun enough way (something missing from Weinstein's scripts), and while Trelaine stories never really get above any of the average Q stories on TNG, it was a nice surprise to see forgotten character Teresa Ross. The high point of the story, however, is Kirk's meeting with Carol, which has a certain poignancy and seems to actually matter. What's unfortunate in what is meant to be a sexy romp is that Rob Davis' art doesn't do justice to any of the women. Most range from mannish to total hags, and even the better looking (like Trelaine's girlfriend) have strange male pattern baldness. And I'm not going to go into details about the turd-asteroid field.
See, I'm one of those narrativist GMs that likes to keep the PCs alive until it is dramatically satisfying for them to die. I treat all my games like episodic TV shows or serial comics, and it wouldn't do to kill a character off on unlucky rolls, or in the middle of adventures, in shit-ass combats with grunts or when the odds are less than epic. No, I want their deaths to MEAN SOMETHING. I want it some meaningful, the player goes into it WILLINGLY.
The beauty with making a character miserable is that it creates drama, it doesn't take drama away. A guy can't very well suffer if he's dead. A character that fails in the above examples might struggle with guilt, public scorn or an employer's ire. Or maybe he has to deal with the loss of a loved one (who's finished their own arc, naturally), rebuild their headquarters anew, or change their status quo from millionaire playboy to grungy public defender. In fact, those endings should be new beginnings.
949. Acceptable Risk
REVIEW: A lame environmental fable with dodgier art than usual from Gordon Purcell. The bagginess verges on the disproportionate, and action-driven scenes are messy. The story is dull and doesn't make good use of Kirk's childhood connection with the antagonist, with a quick resolution thrown in so we don't need to stick around for another issue. The aliens that must be freed are never seen or heard from and the colonists not given a voice. Drab is as drab does.
She's no granddaughter from where I'm sitting.
From the strange boudoir photos of Britain.
Ladies, I've got hair enough for all of you.
Let the glam begin.
Cuz everybody loves a dog.
I told you I was including all of them.
Though to be fair, Jean Marsh was never hotter than as Sara Kingdom.
Best I can do.
Girls swoon now.
Come and have the special Polly cocktail. (Yes, a full-blown Moonbase reference.)
The 60s were all about the hair. Not that it isn't now.
Oh those Victorian values!
For the other side of this coin, see The Mind Robber.
The stories Bessie could tell.
The cleanest shot of the set.
Sarah doesn't want to play our game, but she doesn't need to.
Was the UNIT era, the disco era?
Don't you just love a bad girl?
And they say the Time Lords are sexless.
If you want her in taller hair, the Internet can help you out.
Two words that don't really go together, but here you are, girls.
Probably not Janet Fielding's favorite day on Doctor Who.
Her only good costume, as she slipped out of the series.
Cuz everybody loves a bad boy.
Oh 80s, sometimes you did good.
And sometimes you made me feel confused.
Very confused.
Grace and class.
Before the Doctor, before Mickey, there was this bloke down at the pub...
Some of you have been waiting 30 pictures for this.
I feel a little like Postmodern Barney...
There's a four-letter acronym for this.
Just so's you can look at the tattoo, of course.
You're no Jo Grant, honey, but points for trying.
Dimensionally transcendent.
You're not learning anything new today, are you?
We don't know her name yet, but she's off to a good start.
948. (A Little Adventure...) ...Goes a Long Way! The Conclusion!
REVIEW: The plot turns out to be much ado about nothing, with the bad guys giving the good guys exactly what they want as "punishment", and the issue using up half the page count to get us up to speed from the previous issue (at least, nothing new happens). Scotty and McCoy are still well used, but the Enterprise provides a deus ex machina that doesn't give them their due. Mildly disappointing despite some good dialogue here and there. Weinstein is getting better at characterization, but not at plotting.
DVDs from the East... The Legend of Fong Sai-Yuk (still feeding the Kung Fu Fridays beast here at home) and Seven Samurai (finally found a copy that wouldn't break the bank). DVDs from the West... Two new Classic Doctor Who releases (well, three since The Rescue and The Romans are in the same release, the other is Attack of the Cybermen) and Lars and the Real Girl (a birthday gift, actually, so thanks to Iz and Etienne for that).
DVDs: The big one I flipped (it took me a week, most of it on vacation) is the 3-disc release of Hot Fuzz. Indulgent and at the same time self-deprecating, I thought all the extras on this puppy were entertaining, but man... that took a long time. Here's the breakdown:
We turned Kung Fu Friday into Hong Kong Friday this week by watching Infernal Affairs which, despite the totally ridiculous cover, has no real gun fu in it. This is the film The Departed was based on, and when I say based on, I really mean remade wholesale. Scorsese lost a few points with me that night, as Infernal Affairs tells the same exact story (very much with the same details) with 40 fewer minutes and a villain that out-badasses Jack Nicholson. Tony Leung and Andy Lau aren't bad either... what am I saying, they're great! Throw in Christopher Doyle's beautiful cinematography and you have a high end Hong Kong picture that tends to outshine its American copy. The DVD has a couple of making of features. Nothing much, but cool to watch.
Then, The Right Stuff. To tell the truth, this was the first time I sat through the entire 3+ hour monster, as I'd always found its direction rather wonky. Still do. It's bloated and indulgent, with comedy that misfires more often than it amuses, but there are some very good elements in it nonetheless. Chuck Yaeger's story is the real heart of the film despite essentially being a parallel subplot, and the editing is often a delight. I'd actually gotten this to put in front of my From the Earth to the Moon collection (which is followed by Apollo 13), because I love the early days of space travel as a rule, and I was interested in what extras the DVD could offer. Well, while there is information and footage on the Mercury missions, it's mostly about how to relate them to the screen (which is fine) and how it was received by some of the astronauts. There a commentaries on selected tracks and a long PBS biography of John Glenn on the occasion of his returning to space in '98. Deleted scenes complete the package. Good stuff, and I can say I have a greater appreciation for the film.
Olivier's 1948 Hamlet was necessarily next. I had a VHS version of it, but had yet to watch my DVD copy. Thing is, my Hamlet blog requires me to discuss its opening scene sometime this week, so I gave it a full viewing. Still has some surprisingly modern elements, and I can see why it would win Best Picture at the Oscars that year, but I can't get into Olivier's performance. According to Criterion's leaflet, that's a common opinion. The DVD has nothing else to offer, most of Olivier's Shakespeare-related extras being on his Richard III, which was included in the same boxed set.
Chris Sims of Invincible Super-Blog fame wrote a feature for the Comics Alliance about Suicidally Depressing Comic Strips. I knew newspaper comics were something of a wasteland, but I hadn't realized they'd gone from unfunny to terminal. Face it, the comic strip form now thrives on the Internet, not in the pages of your local paper. Says something about their respective viewership.
947. Betrayal
REVIEW: Lois Tilton has claimed in interviews that writing tie-in novels just wasn't for her, but she avails herself of the opportunity pretty well. Bajoran-Federation-Cardassian politics are well rendered, with the Revanche Party getting its own identity, one that taps into the brutish side of Cardassian personality. The book's highlight, for me, was Berat's POV. It gives us a chance to learn about life on a Cardassian ship, where fear and paranoia are the order of the day. Less interesting is the identity of the agent aboard Deep Space 0, whose betrayal is pretty much telegraphed. A minor plot point, in any case. Good use of Jake and Nog (surprisingly), as well as Sisko, Kira, Odo and O'Brien.
What has gone before: In a ± final throwdown with Hybrid, Brandy Clark was taken out of the Starshine armor and put into a deep coma. Now Rom must fight alone.
Say what you will about Ditko's Rom (and some of you have), Jackson Guice inks some pretty fearsome Deathwings. The skies are darkened with them as EVERY LAST WRAITH ON EARTH get together for an awesome Burning Man ritual.
Yes, this is the issue in which the Dire Wraiths literally STAB THE SUN! Rom's around, of course, fighting them front...
...and back. But their spells are more powerful than ever and they send Rom into "the darkness of Wraith-Realm" as per the cover. As Rom is about to be lost though, he has a... vision?
How Starshine saves him is a mystery, but the darkness is dispelled, and that's a fact. Doesn't help with the wounded sun however.
For that, Rom goes to the little girl who had a Wraith die in her mind and now knows all about their plans (issue #60). She's traumatized to the point of catatonia, but LOOK INTO ROM'S EYES AND YOU CANNOT DENY HIM!
She gives up the goods. The stab wound is actually a tether that's drawing the Wraith's world and star to our system where they will merge into one. Ooh, that can't be good for us.
There's only one thing for it. We have to arm humanity with neutralizers, and only one person on Earth has the know-how to build them. He's already made one, in fact, but he won't make more. And that man is Forge.
What's this untold chapter of the Wraith War? Come back Friday for a special prologue to our next Spaceknight Saturday and all will be revealed!
946. A Little Adventure!
REVIEW: Hey, this was a good bit of fun. Weinstein's Kirk and Spock remain as boring as ever, but whenever he focuses on other pairings, the comic gets fun again. Though his old chestnut of having a factioned alien race is once again used, it's played as a comic character piece, McCoy in particularly good form. I do wonder how the duo can help Binzalians who have just lost a pilot, when neither of them is at the helm though.
I was moving some game boxes around and I found this stuck between two of them: Milk and Cheese's Stupid Little Boardgame from Wizard Magazine #54.
Click for readable size and enjoy the mayhem. This has been Games Week, play safe!
945. Runaway
REVIEW: In addition to less than believable dialogue from the energy beings (see panel above), there's entirely too much technobabble in this issue. It's what happens when Spock and Saavik talk to each other, I suppose, but a lot of it is repetitive and inconsequential. The strength of the issue lies in showing us a bit of the ship's life - Chekov taking up painting, the shooting range's groovy alien targets, that kind of stuff. But there isn't a lot of it, with two of the affected characters being really excited about consoles. An ok one-off, but you almost get the feeling that some of the set pieces weren't scripted, just put in by the artist to spruce up some boring dialogue.
Why should Gameboy (or whatever) users have all the Chinatown fun? Either adapt this sucker or create another storyline revolving around the Yakuza, the Chinese Tong and other goings on in Chinatown. Every time I'm over there and draw a gun, it seems like there's a gang banger ready to pull on me. I want to tap into that.
You play a blue collar Joe that starts doing jobs for his corrupt union until things get out of control. It's the second season of The Wire on the docks, or the construction sites, or any number of locations in the industrial park, the latter a largely underused section of the city. It ends with the nuclear reactor going into meltdown. And hardhat armor!
A stretch, I know, but GTA should cover white collar crime as well. Think Dick Jones in Robocop. You start out as a yuppie wannabe power broker that goes up the corporate ladder through industrial espionage, sabotage and bumping off the opposition. Wall Street has never been so cutthroat.
944. Showdown!
REVIEW: The finish is a good one, with many of the characters getting their licks in, and the Maroans thoroughly trounced. A fairly good send-off for Sulu, but it really didn't have to be this long (the medical emergency thread particularly inconsequential). I've mentioned Purcell's difficulty with outer space action before, and it shows here. Perspectives are wonky, ships are destroyed out of nowhere, and there's one supposedly cool shot of the starships coming out from behind the asteroid that just doesn't work. And just why was this all called The Tabukan Syndrome? Where was the syndrome exactly? But Weinstein's titles are pretty lame by any standard. For example, there's a collision course in this chapter, but the previous one was called Collision Course. One thing's for sure, I'm gonna miss Sulu regardless of who's writing him.
Name: Blinx
943. Collision Course
REVIEW: This is the second time the McCoy thread has ended in a cliffhanger, and when the next issue's come around, nothing happens. Come on, now. And how many times can Excelsior route the Maroans before we can just laugh them off as not much of a threat? The fight between the Enterprise and the Maroans is equally devoid of suspense, unless you count my wondering when Saavik will actually do something to show she's been included for a reason. The only interesting bit is pretty much the last page that features some kind of clever plan on Sulu's part, but we don't yet know what it is. But I've learned not to trust these cliffhangers.
