Shout by JasperKazai
VIP2This season seems determined to shit on Boyle. First they make him the "overly enthusiastic with reparations to the point of being patronizing" guy (which, to be fair, is in line with his character). Then they have the cancer scare. Now they have him not actually being a Boyle. Give the man a break!
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@jasperkazai O'Boyle must suffer, I guess.
(Reference: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/obrien-must-suffer.139334/)
Does someone know why did Kevin have right? I too think it is 50%-50%. :D:D
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@zrbrg I'm years late, but someone did address this in a comment less than two weeks after you posted. https://trakt.tv/comments/118279
the season's bottle show
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@apokalupsis Clip shows are a scourge upon the Stargate universe, and I fully expect to skip all of them if I ever do a rewatch.
With the possible exception of "Disclosure" (SG-1 6x17).
Shout by dgw
VIP10"I don't want him hooked up to that damn machine again without one of you present."
Right, General, because all three other members of SG-1 being present helped so much the first time.
The control console for this memory device looks like a minimal redress of the power station controls from "Revisions".
Though it's most certainly different enough to stand on its own, this episode's premise strongly reminded me of "Ex Post Facto" (Star Trek: Voyager 1x08): In both cases, an alien tries to frame a human outsider for a murder using false memories.
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@wpafbo79 I forgot about that one. It's nearly time for a DS9 re-watch, I guess!
The tone of the episode changed. It's nice to see stuff that isn't straight forward. That said, McKay's superiority sure showed this episode. He was ready to change everything for his own ideology
The two young children had far too much chocolate on their faces for the single bar they got. Regardless, they were adorable.
Side note: Episode with trees
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@wpafbo79 lol. Let's not be too hard on them, though. Shooting in more exotic locations probably came down to budget. If they ventured further and/or more frequently afield, I can say with absolute certainty that we would have gotten even more recap and/or bottle episodes to make up for it.
Ah hell, another episode with the most annoying character in the series.
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@tyrannic_puppy I assume you mean Ishta? Bermanism didn't do Jolene Blalock any favors in her role on Star Trek: Enterprise, but at least T'Pol had logic to temper her volatile Vulcan emotions. It's actually quite funny that Ishta was the one to say, "Kar'yn, you must learn not to let your emotions take you to such extremes."
Bates is such a jack ass. So glad when he leaves Atlantis for good.
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@tyrannic_puppy Look at who he previously served under, though. Sumner was no ray of sunshine. :joy_cat:
I swear an episode in season 4 implied that Bra'tac had been killed. Somewhere along the way I must have misheard a line of dialogue.
Update: It was "The Serpent's Venom", in a conversation between Teal'c, Rak'nor, and Terok. It's from when Terok says, "Not even Bra'tac lasted this long," and later, "He did die, Teal'c." So it wasn't misheard dialogue; it was misleading dialogue. I didn't quite pick up on the "interrogation intimidation" vibe.
Any episode that continues expanding on Teal'c and his deep backstory is a great one in my book.
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@wpafbo79 Found it, in the transcript for "The Serpent's Venom". Updated OP.
Love the idea behind this episode, but the final product has never really worked for me. It often feels like it's trying too hard and most of the humour never quite hits the mark. There are some great in-jokes sprinkled in there, though. I get the feeling that the cast and crew had a lot of fun making this and it was mainly done for their own amusement.
Most problematic is that Martin and his alien friends are just boring subjects for a story. Their whole schtick is repetitive, both in this episode and when combined with their previous one, and they are so bland. Martin himself at least has an okay comic-relief factor, but while I do sympathise with him I also find him difficult to really like.
The best thing in it is the Wormhole X-Treme parody itself, with the fourth-wall breaking end sequence finally landing the humour that the episode was going for.
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@lefthandedguitarist I unfortunately saw the top half of your rating before starting the episode, as kind of a spoiler-ish thing like "oh, this one's not going to be very good", and by halfway through I was wondering what the heck you had been smoking because it's absolutely hilarious… and then the last third, especially, killed it. I understood. :sweat_smile:
Ugh, such a difficult one to rate. It's all over the place, with perfect 10 moments and head-scratching 1 moments flipping back and forth until, sadly, the actual story drags it down. :frowning:
A great episode that comes close to ranking among the best for the show. A simple concept is given a lot of depth thanks to various factors that the show has built up by this point. The Unas have been given just enough development to make this genuinely compelling, and while we only get to see glimpses of what they are all about it still feels like there's a functioning society there. Top marks are due for the actors under all those prosthetics (both of whom have a long history of Stargate appearances by this point).
This is a really strong outing for the characters, too. Daniel gets to be himself and show his frustrations at the situation, O'Neill is allowed to give in to doing what feels right even though it may be against his better judgement. And Larry Drake is on fire as he portrays a bad guy with such skill that we as an audience genuinely hate him. Extremely well done.
It also has the courage to end on a dark note.
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@lefthandedguitarist Larry Drake played another pretty great "bad guy" the previous year, as Administrator Chellick in "Critical Care" (Star Trek: Voyager 7x05).
Absolutely superb, and a fantastic follow up the equally great 'Touchstone' from season 2. This episode takes you on a ride and manages to make you question whether your really knew O'Neill at all. I loved it when Stargate went full intrigue because the characters were set up well enough to take it to all sorts of unexpected places.
And again, this uses the shows history to build a new story from existing parts, which is so cool. We go right back to Tollana from a few episodes back and use their "no technology" stance to take us down a completely different path. Maybourne and his secrets that were laid in 'Touchstone' begin to be revealed and Jack is even able to use the events of '100 Days' as a reason to help him with his plans.
It manages to keep O'Neill's intentions pretty well hidden, even going as far as to potentially hurt his friendship with Daniel in quite a harsh scene. One thing that always stuck out to me was that in his conversation with Carter about "now I'm acting like myself", his performance really brought me back to the original Kurt Russell version from the movie. Nice.
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@lefthandedguitarist Was it just me who thought the ruse was supremely obvious? Not the exact target, per se, but the fact that Jack was playing a role?
The way this episode brings together a bunch of characters from different previous episodes feels so rewarding. That's the thing that used to always make Stargate stand out so much for me compared to much of the Star Trek shows, the sense of continuity and consequences. It's great to see Ska'ara again (I wish the show had used him more) and the return of the Nox with Lya. Plus, we get to see the cool new Tollan homeworld which looks suspiciously like a university campus! It works, though.
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@lefthandedguitarist In terms of continuity, DS9 was the Star Trek we deserved. Nearly the entire canon aside from that one series, though… Yes, unfortunately there are a lot of Reset Buttons in Trek.
Stargate did clipshow episodes, a money-saving measure that was an unfortunate necessity for many American television shows at that time. They are never fun to watch. This franchise did at least try to make the episodes as interesting as it could, though. In fact, the Stargate clipshows could sometimes be some of the more important ones for pushing the overall story forward. 'Politics' definitely falls under that description, making it a necessary watch.
Outside of the clips, the episode is actually fantastic. The introduction of Senator Kinsey gives us a really loathsome villain who is a lot of fun to watch, especially with all the verbal sparring that accompanies him. The SGC become ever more desperate as they attempt to defend the Stargate program to a person who has already made up his mind. It's a one-room episode that works really well, and the introduction of more political elements to the show opens things up for some good future conflicts.
But, I just can't excuse the use of all the clips from previous episodes. They are also taken from a number of the more awkward episodes, making them even less appealing. Well, at least we can be thankful that they didn't use anything from 'Hathor', I guess.
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@lefthandedguitarist Given the dramatic impact of this episode's events, I wish it had been objectively better. I'm sure you know as well as I do that it's possible to tell a good sci-fi story without having to leave your home base/ship/whatever, but this ain't it chief. They should have asked the DS9 or Voyager writing teams for advice :joy_cat:
It is all about justice system
If guilty person regrets the guilt, allowed to be free? This is about it. Courts, laws, countries maybe can change but always justice system will make mistakes because punishments are open to discuss.
So , in this episode, it was only a nonsense part, when Goa'uld came to the planet. After that, teal'c did what he had to do as a good warrior. And that is why, he was forgiven. If goa uld did not come, so teal'c could be killed but maybe daniel, carter and jack could attack them to rescue him.
I was thinking stargate was in canada , not usa but in this episode they said usa. So why do they sometimes talk about toronto?
It was also good to see how teal's is full of pain. He regrets every crime he did.
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@cursedchico Much of Stargate SG-1 was filmed in Canada, though not very close to Toronto. If I had to guess, they reference Toronto because it's so close to New York (state) that it's practically part of the United States, and likely to be recognizable for the target American audience.
I'm confused: who wrote that letter? Emily from our side? She already knew Howard from their side? So, "our" Emily isn't really who we think she is and she's involved in all of this? How did the Emily from the other side get a hold of such letter? It probably didn't help that I slept a little bit during the episode (due to tiredness, not the episode itself, the episode was great)...
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@misnomer This is about three years too late, but Emily Prime got the letter when she went to light a candle next to Howard Prime's mother's picture in the church on the other side, after crossing back. That's why Howard Prime asked her that seemingly innocuous favor as she was leaving the embassy. Despite sleeping a bit, you picked up on most of the details just fine anyway!
Review by Andrew Bloom
VIP9[8.4/10] This is a great spoof of traditional horror tropes, while also showing how well Dan Harmon and company know their characters. The premise of somebody in the group being a psychopath is a nice spine for this one, and the coining of “Britta” as a verb is a Community classic.
My favorite of the stories here are Abed’s and Annie’s. Abed’s story of a hyper-prepared and overexplained couple at a cabin in the woods is both a nice take on his sort of hyperliteralism and nitpicky story sense, but also a nice broader spoof of the boring movies that cinemasins-style critiquers would create. At the same time, Annie’s “teach a vampire how to read” tale is an amusing parody of Twilight and a hundred other monster romance books, which also speaks to Annie’s need to help fix people (“You should be so proud of how I changed you!”), and has an amusingly disturbing twist with the werewolf dismemberment material that leaves her classmates in shock.
The next two runner-ups in the story department are Shirley’s and Britta’s. Shirley’s is a great visual take on a sort of Chick tract come to life. The misguided drug slang and low key disdain for her friends’ lifestyles, mixed with the self-righteous “I forgive yoooouuu!” and a great turn from Dean Pelton as the Him-esque devil is outstanding. And while Britta’s story is pretty standard stuff, the way her perfunctory storytelling is reflected in the skit and the dialogue is hilarious.
Jeff’s story is true to form as a way to get the group on the same page. Pierce’s turn as “Magnum” is pretty unpleasant, even if that’s supposed to be a reflection of Pierce’s prejudices and self-inflated ego. And Troy’s low grade take on a Human Centipede-type story isn’t full of as many laughs as you might expect, but at least reflects Troy’s teenage boy sense of “awesomeness!”
The group’s mutual paranoia and eventual realization that they’re all psychopaths is an amusing place to take the frame story (not to mention Britta imagining herself reading “Warren Peace”), and goes out on a fractured but sweet note which characterizes this show.
Overall, this is a great Halloween outing, with very funny takes on classic horror movie beats and knowing takes on each of the characters.
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@andrewbloom Even better: Britta imagined herself reading "Warren Piece". :rofl:
[7.4/10] The A-story here is a little Chang-heavy for my tastes. I know he’s supposed to be annoying/terrible, especially early on, but his jerkassery and racism makes me really just want him off my screen. But I like it as a Jeff story. Jeff hangs out with Chang to soothe his Spanish teacher after a marital separation and reap the benefits of exemptions from Chang’s draconian assignments, only to realize that he’d rather reunite Chang and his wife and get everyone in class off the hook, than have to continue being Chang’s friend just to reap those rewards. It’s a nice instance of Jeff “kind of” doing the right thing for the group.
The B-story, with Troy and Abed trying to recover their lab rat despite Troy’s rodent-phobia’s is a lot of fun. I like the emotional throughline of Troy having to learn to make sacrifices for his friends rather than the other way around, and the American Tail references worked for me hook line and sinker. Plus, Donald Glover’s line read for his remark about Abed dropping the subject was hilarious. It’s a good physical comedy/noise-making episode for Glover in general.
The C-story was good too! It’s rare that we get a Pierce/Shirley story at all, let alone one that doesn't just devolve into sexual harassment. Pierce’s public speaking tips are fun, and the pair have a good comic energy. Shirley embracing Pierce’s tips at the end, right down to a hilarious “Heeeeeeere’s Brownie!” reference, and succeeding, was a good beat.
The more marginal stuff in the episode is all good too. I like the running gag about Pierce thinking Jeff’s ability to get laughs comes from his chair. People pointing out Jeff’s fake outrage and argument tactics is superb. The Dean’s “go green” efforts are a hoot, right down to the “This better not awaken anything in me” line. And the montage that connects Chang’s salsa dancing, Shirley’s presentation, and the meaningful “Somewhere Out There” duet is very well done.
Overall, too much time with Chang, but otherwise a very nice episode.
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I love how, right after I basically said in a reply to your review of the previous episode that Pierce shouldn't even have made it through series development, the very next Pierce story managed to be halfway decent. :joy_cat:
[7.3/10] You know, it’s a shame that the show more or less stopped giving Shirley that much to do, because she’s such a treat in the early going here. The way that she and Jeff bond over gossip, get in too deep, but hilariously rag on Vaughn is a hoot from start to finish, and it’s packed with some real pathos of Jeff trying to be a good friend to Britta and Shirley being unable to resist her natural pot-stirring nature. Their friendship is an interesting one, and I wish the show had explored it more outside of this and foosball.
I am, as is my wont, less into the Jeff/Britta will they/won’t they stuff, but Vaugn is a great comic creation. The actor does a great job at making Vaugn both inherently ridiculous but so earnest in his faux-hippie lifestyle that you feel bad for him when he gets his feelings hurt. His triple greeting and propensity to take his shirt off are great gags, but when he says silly things like “this is the least tight thing that’s ever happened to me” or “some worries” it manages to be both absurd but also contains just enough pathos to make it land.
Then you have the great story of Annie roping Troy and Abed’s into Prof. Duncan’s waiting game experiment. It’s a great outing comedically, as Duncan’s Britishness and petulance come to a head at the same time Troy’s childlike extravertedness does. But it’s also really the start of Annie and Abed as a pairing, and the understated meaning in Abed sitting through all that just because Annie said she was his friend hits the same mixture of prettytouching and a little insane that is the fuel this show runs on.
Last but not least, there’s Pierce, who’s to the side and mostly inoffensive here with his “ear-noculars” that actually come into play!
Overall, another good outing early in the show’s run.
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@andrewbloom Just wanted to let you know, there's a duplicate comment: https://trakt.tv/comments/163633
Not using the flag button because maybe you accidentally posted a second time instead of editing, and I haven't compared them exactly. :)
Patrick Stewart spins around the wrong way after Brent Spiner "hits" him in Engineering… No wonder that particular fight call seemed extra cheesy.
Both times Graves transfers his consciousness, the implied mechanics leave major plot holes. Who turned Data back on? How did Data get on the floor? Who unplugged him?!
While I wouldn't necessarily call this a great story—it has a lot of elements that were common in science fiction up to that time, and the plot holes are awfully big—it is a great watch. Brent Spiner doing just about anything makes for a great watch.
I'm a bit disappointed to read that a scene where Data was to riff on Picard's bald head, after his attempt at a Riker-like beard failed, was cut from the script. That would have been hilarious. But maybe it would have included another instance of Deanna making some excuse to avoid laughing in front of Data, who is an android and would not feel insulted by it, so… maybe it was better left out. (That bit was very out of character, I thought. Troi shouldn't feel the need to hide her reaction from Data. He'd find it useful feedback, if anything.)
Besides Spiner's usual obvious fun-having, there are some nice little writing touches to think about.
IMDB pointed out (because I haven't read Dickens in forever) that the disease Graves had is probably a reference to a character of the same name in A Tale of Two Cities, which is pretty great.
Graves' name itself, while not really a literary reference per se, is still funny. A man trying to cheat death is named after the thing in which he does not want to end up (a grave). Har har?
(I also realized early on this this episode why Dr. Pulaski must be so dour… She's played by Diana Muldaur, who practically has "dour" in her name… but that's a cheap shot, I guess.)
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@andreas1138 Unfortunately I haven't gotten to all of the episodes, but I'm glad you're enjoying what's there. :)
Patrick Stewart spins around the wrong way after Brent Spiner "hits" him in Engineering… No wonder that particular fight call seemed extra cheesy.
Both times Graves transfers his consciousness, the implied mechanics leave major plot holes. Who turned Data back on? How did Data get on the floor? Who unplugged him?!
While I wouldn't necessarily call this a great story—it has a lot of elements that were common in science fiction up to that time, and the plot holes are awfully big—it is a great watch. Brent Spiner doing just about anything makes for a great watch.
I'm a bit disappointed to read that a scene where Data was to riff on Picard's bald head, after his attempt at a Riker-like beard failed, was cut from the script. That would have been hilarious. But maybe it would have included another instance of Deanna making some excuse to avoid laughing in front of Data, who is an android and would not feel insulted by it, so… maybe it was better left out. (That bit was very out of character, I thought. Troi shouldn't feel the need to hide her reaction from Data. He'd find it useful feedback, if anything.)
Besides Spiner's usual obvious fun-having, there are some nice little writing touches to think about.
IMDB pointed out (because I haven't read Dickens in forever) that the disease Graves had is probably a reference to a character of the same name in A Tale of Two Cities, which is pretty great.
Graves' name itself, while not really a literary reference per se, is still funny. A man trying to cheat death is named after the thing in which he does not want to end up (a grave). Har har?
(I also realized early on this this episode why Dr. Pulaski must be so dour… She's played by Diana Muldaur, who practically has "dour" in her name… but that's a cheap shot, I guess.)
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@andreas1138 It could be a direct turbolift, but I think the obvious explanation is the correct one: Neither the writers nor the director wanted to show Pulaski mouthing a command to the turbolift during her voiceover dialogue—and they certainly didn't want to have her talk over herself—so they had her stand in silence instead.
This won't the the first time you encounter blocking that doesn't quite fit with how things are "supposed to" work in the Trek universe. Automatic doors, for example, are notorious for somehow "knowing" exactly when to open (or not) based on the dramatic beats of a scene. :grin:
The first episode of season two that I actually disliked. Ah, well, not even The Nanny can bat a thousand.
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@demeter "A difference of opinion."
But seriously, upon reading the synopsis (because I don't remember random sitcom episodes I watched a year ago), I suspect it was the writing/plot. Sometimes sitcoms contrive their stories so much that they cease to be funny, because my suspension of disbelief runs out, and I think this was one such case.
Just speculating, though. The real nitty-gritty details are lost to time, sadly, because I didn't elaborate in my shout.
That was an interesting ending. Shouldn't that reflect upon the things in the future....the present....the...whatever. If the memory wipe didn't work (assumption) than Kelly should've remembered the events unless they happened now for the first time or she intentionally avoided the subject. If it had already been happening than they would've not got married ??? Boy I hope I am using the right times in all of this. It's like Ed said: No one gets an "A" in time travel.
Reminds me a bit of the TNG episode where we get Thomas Riker. But again there is also a meaning to all of this. Don't we all have a point in our lives where we wish now we could have made different choices ? Things happen for a reason and no one knows what would have happened had we taken the other road.
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@finfan Doesn't have to reflect on the prime timeline at all, necessarily. Past Kelly could have started her own branch timeline in which she and Ed never get married. and it wouldn't affect the characters we see every week at all.
World Premiere Review:
Not as good as the original, but totally worth going to see in the theaters. I don't think I've laughed this much at a Pixar film since the the first one. This one didn't seem to have as much "heart" as the original as this felt almost like a revival for this particular franchise than an actual sequel. Fun for adults and kids. Baby steals the show.
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@flirtilad At the time the comment you replied to was left? The movie was only in theaters. But Trakt isn't a site for watching movies; it's a site for tracking what you watch, and maybe leaving comments/reviews about that content. There are plenty of places to watch this stuff. Trakt even links to them, if available.
Shout by kinky
VIPEP6I was absolutely loving the episode, until Ty — a child — casually walked out of the Orville, no authorization required, he literally just opened the door and left. That broke the episode, for me, even more so when you consider that was a crucial plot element for the big, shocking twist to be revealed. I can't believe Brannon Braga, a Star Trek: TNG veteran, wrote something as atrocious as that.
Everything else about this episode was utterly excellent and this would have been a sci-fi masterpiece, if it all didn't depend on that one badly written scene.loading replies
@misnomer My very first reaction to that was, "That should raise an alarm somewhere in the computer system…"
Like, if someone launches an unscheduled shuttle, the Bridge is gonna get an alert. Should be the same for any exterior hatches opening that aren't planned (like they did when the Kaylon boarded, later).
Can probably hand-wave all this away as Ty being way smarter than we suspect at this point, e.g. he managed to steal a high-level authorization code that suppresses alerts, but that's not especially likely. Occam's Razor says this was just lazy writing.
Daniel Davis is an underappreciated talent.
I haven't much to say about the episode itself except:
- It shouldn't be possible for Moriarty to be anywhere near the threat that he is, because it should be impossible for holodeck characters to perceive anything outside the parameters of their program.
- Despite the huge plot hole, the Holmes-themed episodes of TNG are always fun anyway.
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@finfan I tried to ignore the whole AI thing, hand-waving it away with my statement about "the huge plot hole", because it very quickly becomes a slippery slope.
The fact that Geordi's phrasing slip—"capable of defeating Data" instead of "capable of defeating Holmes"—allows the computer to create an apparently sentient AI raises some tough questions about the ship's computer itself. Not the least of which is, if the computer can create sentience, does that imply its own sentience? And from there, we start to wonder how self-destruct systems could ever be ethical in Starfleet, since the computer is essentially ordered to commit suicide.
Data went through the Academy and was sworn in as an officer. Do all shipboard computers take an oath of service, too? Even then, it doesn't eliminate the ethical considerations of ordering a ship to self-destruct. This is just a small sampling of why I consider Moriarty a plot hole.
With two episodes remaining, the writers finally remember that the word "ship" is in the title of the show, which immediately translates into a better episode than most recent outings. And given that even the minimal shipboard stuff here still managed to elevate the quality of the episode considerably, I'm left to wonder once again why they seemed to grow to hate doing actual naval stuff on this show. Is it hard to film on those sets? Is it expensive for some reason? Who knows. But story-wised, everyone is converging on a small patch of Central American land and
next week it's all-in, given that it's the series finale.And I'll miss Burke. As Ferris Buehler might say, he was a righteous dude. He was just a good guy who deserved to make it to the end.
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@jimgysin I can't find it again, but some time ago I remember reading that the Navy's involvement in the show was curtailed for (possibly) cost reasons. That would mean the show having a much harder time filming scenes onboard ships.
The moral of this episode: Don't get married.
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@legendaryfang56 "And," as my (married) dad would say, "raise all your kids the same way."
One of my favourite episodes of the series.
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@cptarius I can see why!
I always want the best for Sandra for some reason.
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@stiznarkey Probably because none of the characters do, haha.
"Amazing. We've managed to perfect the apple—a genetically modified version that never goes brown. And yet, we still haven't upgraded human beings." Root, where do I start with you? You're clearly quite intelligent, so how is it you don't see the multiple orders of magnitude difference in complexity between the two life forms you just named?
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@sailormewni It's always the writer, but I get so tired of yelling at "the writers" all the time, lol. I figure blaming the writers for anything a character says or does on screen is implied, so I can just yell at the character directly.
