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Short Treks Star Trek

Runaway

Star Trek: Short TreksStardate not given: Freshly promoted from Cadet to Ensign, Sylvia Tilly is still aboard the Discovery, and she still can’t convince her mother, via communicator, that she can handle the rigors of command training without washing out of Starfleet. When she retreats to the mess hall to drown her sorrows in a snack, Tilly makes a new friend. Tilly’s new friend is a stowaway aboard Discovery, and worse yet, she’s a stowaway who belongs to the royal family of a strategically important planet. Tilly has to keep her new friend from running and going into hiding, a test of her diplomatic skills that just isn’t part of the command training program.

Order DVDsStream this episode via Amazonwritten by Jenny Lumet and Alex Kurtzman
directed by Maja Vrvilo
music by Jeff Russo

Cast: Mary Wiseman (Ensign Sylvia Tilly), Vadira Guevara-Prip (Me Hani Ika Hali Ka Po), Mimi Kuzyk (Siobhan Tilly)

Short TreksNotes: Devised as a means of keeping Star Trek fans subscribed to the CBS All Access streaming service, rather than cancelling their subscriptions the moment Star Trek: Discovery’s first season ended, Short Treks was the tip of the iceberg of a new deluge of Star Trek spinoffs to go into development following the success of Discovery’s first season. Each Short Treks episode runs approximately fifteen minutes, and the first four typically involved a very small cast on existing sets from Discovery (with a promise that later installments would venture further afield in the franchise) – in a way, almost as if the producers had to abide by most of the rules and guidelines CBS had set down for Star Trek fan films as a direct result of the contentious lawsuit over the fan-made project Star Trek: Axanar, which came under legal scrutiny after it raised over half a million dollars in crowdfunding. The shorts also served as a proving ground for future talent to be associated with later spinoffs, including writers Michael Chabon and Mike McMahan.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Resistance Season 1 Star Wars

The Recruit

Star Wars: ResistanceKaz Xiono, a young pilot for the New Republic Navy (and the son of a senator), is trying to return valuable intelligence to the Republic when his X-Wing squadron is ambushed by a crimson TIE fighter. Kaz ensures that the rest of his group escape, but finds himself outgunned when trying to take on the First Order fighter alone until another X-Wing joins the battle. That fighter, piloted by Poe Dameron, not only saves Kaz’s life but escorts him aboard a cruiser belonging to the Resistance. Considered extremists by many members of the New Republic, the Resistance is recruiting for a fight against the First Order, a remnant of the Galactic Empire that many (including Kaz’s father) refuse to believe is a credible threat. Poe thinks Kaz has what it takes to join the Resistance, and brings him to the ocean planet Castilon to install him as a Resistance spy. Poe tells Kaz to lie low and blend in…and is horrified when, within a day, Kaz’s boast of being the best pilot in the galaxy is taken out of context. Now Kaz is expected to prove his claim in a life-or-death race…and neither Poe nor his local allies at the rough-and-tumble Colossus station can intervene without blowing their new recruit’s cover.

Download this episode via Amazonteleplay by Brandon Auman
story by Dave Filoni
directed by Steward Lee and Saul Ruiz
music by Michael Tavera
based on original themes and music by John Williams

Star Wars: ResistanceCast: Christopher Sean (Kazuda Xiono), Josh Brener (Neeku Vozo), Scott Lawrence (Jarek Yeager), Suzie McGrath (Tam Ryvora), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Bobby Moynihan (Orka / Yani), Cherami Leigh (Mia Gabon), Dee Bradley Baker (First Order Comm Officer / Glem / Grevel), Fred Tatasciore (Bolza Grool / Hapless Pilot / Orthog), Greg Proops (Jak Sivrak), Jim Rash (Flix), Jonathan Lipow (Glitch), Lex Lang (Major Vonreg), Myrna Velasco (Torra Doza), Sam Witwer (Hugh Sion), Tovah Dekshuh (Aunt Z / Random Human), Tzi Ma (Hamato Xiono), Oscar Isaac (Poe Dameron)

Notes: Set prior to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: Resistance is a marked departure in animation style from the Lucasfilm animated series that preceded it, Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars: Rebels. Series creator Dave Filoni wanted the animation style to more closely resemble anime, and drew from his father’s World War II experiences in setting up a scenario in which an obviously imminent threat is ignored by the populace at large.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 11

The Woman Who Fell To Earth

Doctor WhoRyan Sinclair is nonplussed by the bicycle his grandmother, Grace, and her husband, Graham, have gotten for him; he suffers from a coordination disorder that makes riding it difficult, though he finds it easy – in a fit of anger – to throw it off a hill. As he’s retrieving it, Ryan sees a three-dimensional geometric shape form in the air; when he touches it, it disappears, replaced by a large blue pod. He calls the police, and is reunited with childhood friend Yasmin Khan, now a police officer in training, when she responds to his call.

Ryan, Grace and Graham are riding the train back into town when the train crashes into something, killing the driver. An undulating mass of electrical wires corners the passengers when a woman crashes through the ceiling of the train and immediately wards off the wires, as if that’s her first instinct. Unfortunately, while she immediately takes charge of the situation, she has no idea who she is, though she claims that she was a Scotsman mere minutes ago, confusing the already-terrified people in her vicinity. After this initial burst of activity, she collapses in Grace and Graham’s home, awakening to find that something has emerged from the pod seen by Ryan. A being called Tzim-Sha is hunting for a designated target on Earth, as part of a ritualistic hunt that determines the status of his race, the Stenza. What he doesn’t know is that he is now up against the Doctor – even if she’s not sure of who she is yet – who is pledged to protect Earth and its people.

Order the DVDwritten by Chris Chibnall
directed by Jamie Childs
music by Segun Akinola

Cast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Sharon D. Clarke (Grace O’Brien), Samuel Oatley (Tim Shaw), Jonny Dixon (Karl), Amit Shah (Rahul), Asha Kingsley (Sonia), Janine Mellor (Janey), Asif Khan (Ramesh Sunder), James Thackeray (Andy), Philip Abiodun (Dean), Stephen MacKenna (Dennis), Everal A. Walsh (Gabriel)

Chris Noth as Robertson in Doctor WhoNotes: After 12 years of the Doctor’s adventures being scored by Murray Gold, this is the first change of music composer in the revived Doctor Who series; ironically, it’s also the first episode in Doctor Who’s 55-year history to completely omit an opening title sequence, so Segun Akinola’s new arrangement of the Doctor Who theme music wouldn’t debut until the following episode, The Ghost Monument. Bradley Walsh had previously appeared as Odd Bob in the Russell T. Davies-era Doctor Who spinoff The Sarah Jane Adventures (Day Of The Clown parts 1 and 2), as well as the 2001 comedy Hotel!, where he shared screen time with once and future Doctors Paul McGann and Peter Capaldi. The episode’s title is a reference to the 1976 movie The Man Who Fell To Earth, starring David Bowie. The teeth are a dead giveaway that Tim Shaw is no relation to Liz Shaw.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Resistance Season 1 Star Wars

The Triple Dark

Star Wars: ResistanceIn order to earn something resembling a living while waiting for any news of the First Order, Kaz has to work in Jarek Yeager’s repair shop, fixing speeders and spacecraft, but two things get in the way – he’s more excited by the prospect of spying, and knows next to nothing about repairing a ship. When Kaz thinks he overhears something worth spying on, he discovers that it’s not the First Order, but the station’s criminal underworld – and he quickly makes himself their next target.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Kevin Burke & Chris “Doc” Wyatt
directed by Sergio Paez
music by Michael Tavera
based on original themes and music by John Williams

Star Wars: ResistanceCast: Christopher Sean (Kazuda Xiono), Josh Brener (Neeku Vozo), Scott Lawrence (Jarek Yeager), Suzie McGrath (Tam Ryvora), Bobby Moynihan (Orka), Dee Bradley Baker (Egdir / Glem / Grevel / Skreek), Fred Tatasciore (Bolza Grool / Narb / Random Pirate), Gary Anthony Williams (Kragan Gorr), Gwendoline Christie (Captain Phasma), Jim Rash (Flix), Jonathan Lipow (Hallion / Nod / PA Voice / Tooms), Lex Lang (Major Vonreg), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (Freya Fenris), Myrna Velasco (Torra Doza), Nanzeen Contractor (Synara San)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 11

The Ghost Monument

Doctor WhoThe Doctor’s attempt to teleport to the last location of the TARDIS goes wrong…badly. Not only does the process deposit the Doctor in the airless void of space, but it also leaves Graham, Yaz and Ryan there as well. Ryan and Graham awaken on a spacecraft whose captain accuses them of slowing her down. The Doctor and Yaz have been rescued by a ship whose captain makes the same accusation, and whose ship is falling apart. The Doctor manages to help that pilot, Epzo, pull off a survivable crash landing by ditching the aft section of his ship. The planet where the time travelers are reunited, known only as the Desolation, is the site of the Rally of the Twelve Galaxies – a race to survive to the finish line where the winner takes all and the loser loses it all, though the contestants are forbidden from killing one another. The Doctor, Graham, Ryan and Yaz are unable to claim the prize, but are likely to be killed by the planet’s harsh desert environment before anyone reaches the goal – a blue, box-shaped apparition known to the contestants as the Ghost Monument. But the Doctor knows this box as the TARDIS, and so the deadly race holds very high stakes indeed for the time travelers.

Order the DVDwritten by Chris Chibnall
directed by Mark Tonderai
music by Segun Akinola

Cast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), Doctor WhoTosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Susan Lynch (Angstrom), Shaun Dooley (Epzo), Art Malik (Ilin), Ian Gelder (voice of the Remnants)

Notes: The thirteenth Doctor’s title sequence (and a new arrangement of the theme tune by Segun Akinola) makes its debut at the beginning of this episode. The Desolation is revealed to have been desolated by the Stenza, the species from which the previous episode’s alien enemy hails.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Resistance Season 1 Star Wars

Fuel For The Fire

Star Wars: ResistanceKaz finds it difficult to concentrate on work when there are races to watch from the open launch deck at Yeager’s shop, so he takes the engine he’s trying to repair out to the edge of the deck…and then watches helplessly as it suddenly starts and then dumps itself into the ocean. While on a break, Kaz runs into a young hotshot racing crew that seems to have its act together slightly better than his own, and he’s eager to make new friends. But his new “friends” are eager to use Kaz to get to Yeager’s stockpile of parts and fuel…and Kaz isn’t aware of Yeager’s own past as a racer, or the fact that he has fuel that’s far too dangerous for recreational racing.

Star Wars: ResistanceDownload this episode via Amazonwritten by Eugene Son
directed by Bosco Ng
music by Michael Tavera
based on original themes and music by John Williams

Cast: Christopher Sean (Kazuda Xiono), Josh Brener (Neeku Vozo), Scott Lawrence (Jarek Yeager), Suzie McGrath (Tam Ryvora), Elijah Wood (Jace Rucklin), Eric Bauza (Gorrak Wiles), Greg Proops (Garma / Jak Sivrak), Rachael MacFarlane (Lin Gaava), Tovah Feldshuh (Aunt Z)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 11

Rosa

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS lands in Montgomery, Alabama mere days before December 1st, 1955, the night on which Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. It’s only after Ryan innocently tries to return a dropped item to a white couple that the time travelers crash into the brutal reality of the racism in this era of American history – and meet Rosa Parks herself. Soon afterward, the Doctor becomes aware that another time traveler is in Montgomery at the same time, something that can’t possibly be a coincidence, and finds herself confronting a man whose preference for a racially-segregated future has led him to try to change history. Ryan attends a meeting at Parks’ home and gets to meet Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., while the Doctor, Graham and Yaz put a plan into motion to keep history on the right track to advance the American civil rights movement…but to do that, not only must they derail the scheme of their rival time traveler, they must remain still, and seemingly indifferent to the reality of race in 1955 in America, as they occupy seats about the same bus on the night of Rosa Parks’ arrest.

Order the DVDwritten by Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall
directed by Mark Tonderai
music by Segun Akinola

Doctor WhoCast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Vinette Robinson (Rosa Parks), Joshua Bowman (Krasko), Trevor White (James Blake), Richard Lothian (Mr. Steele), Jessica Claire Preddy (Waitress), Gareth Marks (Police Officer Mason), David Rubin (Raymond Parks), Ray Sesay (Martin Luther King), Aki Omoshaybi (Fred Gray), David Dukas (Elias Griffin Jr.), Morgan Deare (Arthur)

Doctor WhoNotes: Vinette Robinson had made a prior appearance in Doctor Who, in the 2007 episode 42 opposite David Tennant’s Doctor; she has also appeared in Black Mirror (Hated In The Nation) and Sherlock. Joshua Bowman has some time travel experience of his own, as Jack the Ripper in the short-lived 2017 TV adaptation of the movie Time After Time. American-born actor Morgan Deare previously appeared opposite Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor in the 1987 three-parter Delta And The Bannerman, and in the 2001 Big Finish audio story Minuet In Hell, starring Paul McGann’s Doctor. He has also appeared in Star Cops (another BBC science fiction series produced in 1987) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Doctor WhoAs unlikely a topic as Rosa Parks’ arrest might seem for a British science fiction series, the reality is that this historical event had ripples that reached England as well, in particular a boycott of bus service in Bristol, inspired by the boycott following Parks’ 1955 arrest, and arising from the bus company’s refusal to hire non-caucasian drivers or other employees. Unlike the year-long Montgomery bus boycott, the Bristol boycott organized by Paul Stephenson lasted only two months in 1963, and was resolved by the bus company’s hire of its first non-white bus conductor a mere three months before Doctor Who premiered. (This also partly explains Ryan and Yaz’ degree of familiarity with Parks’ role in American history.)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Doctor Who New Series Season 11

Arachnids In The UK

Doctor WhoThe TARDIS somewhat unexpectedly deposits the Doctor, Ryan, Yaz and Graham not just in the present day, but within a short walk of Yaz’s apartment, and the Doctor is crestfallen when her companions seem all too ready to part ways with her. An impromptu invitation to have dinner with Yaz’s family softens the blow. For Graham, however, nothing softens the blow of going home to an empty house filled with cobwebs.

Too many cobwebs, though – and it’s not isolated to Graham’s home. As Yaz goes to pick her mother up from work, the Doctor and Ryan are asked by a neighbor to help perform a welfare check on a woman who hasn’t been seen leaving her apartment for days… only to find that she’s dead, cocooned in a thick web woven by a frighteningly oversized spider. The neighbor – a research scientist studying spiders – admits that there have been similar incidents in and around Sheffield. All the activity points toward a hotel, owned by American business magnate (and presidential hopeful) Jack Robertson, mere days away from opening. Robertson has discovered that the rooms of his hotel are also infested with giant spiders…and his bodyguard has just been dragged away by the largest one. It turns out that his hotel business builds on toxic sites operated by his waste disposal business, which, while cheap, now threatens to turn Earth into a planet of the spiders… and threatens to turn the human race into dinner unless the Doctor can find a way to stop the spiders’ spread. But her ideas and Robertson’s are vastly different, since his solution is to go in shooting.

Order the DVDwritten by Chris Chibnall
directed by Sallie Aprahamian
music by Segun Akinola

Cast: Jodie Whittaker (The Doctor), Bradley Walsh (Graham O’Brien), Tosin Cole (Ryan Sinclair), Mandip Gill (Yasmin Khan), Chris Noth (Robertson), Sharon D. Clarke (Grace O’Brien), Shobna Gulati (Najia Khan), Tanya Fear (Dr. Jade McIntyre), Ravin J. Ganatra (Hakim Khan), Bhavnisha Parmar (Sonya Khan), Jaleh Alp (Frankie Ellish), William Meredith (Kevin)

Chris Noth as Robertson in Doctor WhoNotes: Actor Chris Noth is no stranger to American audiences, having been a regular on such series as Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Sex And The City, The Good Wife, Gone, and Tyrant. But alongside his mainstream successes, he’s also done some voice work, in Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths (as Lex Luthor, no less) and the English dub of Hayao Miyazaki’s big-screen anime From Up On Poppy Hill. Shobna Gulati has had two long-running stints on UK soap Coronation Street as Sunita Alahan, as well as Doctors, Casualty, and River City. Tanya Fear has appeared in the series Spotless and the movie Kick-Ass 2. Guest roles on Coronation Street and Doctors also appear on Ravin J. Ganatra’s resume, along with the movie Entrapment, and a prior appearance in the Doctor Who universe (as a different character) in the Torchwood episode Greeks Bearing Gifts. The episode’s other American character is played by American-born William Meredith, who has appeared in Band Of Brothers and Outlander, but has also done voice acting for the Battlefield video game franchise.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Categories
Resistance Season 1 Star Wars

The High Tower

Star Wars: ResistanceFuel and power rationing plunge the entire station into darkness. Unable to get any work done, Kaz joins Tam and Neeku at Aunt Z’s bar, where Aunt Z openly speculates that Captain Doza has intentionally cut power so no one will see a delegation from the First Order arriving by night. Kaz is even more impressed when flying ace Hype Fazon walks into Aunt Z’s, especially since the station’s flying aces have their own luxurious lounge in the central tower which is also home to Captain Doza’s office. Ingratiating himself with Fazon – against Tam’s warnings – Kaz gets an invitation to the aces’ lounge, where he sees First Order stormtroopers and Major Vonreg paying Doza a visit, and eavesdrops on Vonreg threatening to withhold further fuel drops unless Doza allows a permanent First Order garrison on the station. Though this is finally the spying he’s been so excited about doing, Kaz is clumsy when trying to get back to BB-8 with this information, and is suddenly the target of a First Order manhunt.

Download this episode via Amazonwritten by Stephany Folsom
directed by Steward Lee
music by Michael Tavera
based on original themes and music by John Williams

Star Wars: ResistanceCast: Christopher Sean (Kazuda Xiono), Josh Brener (Neeku Vozo), Scott Lawrence (Jarek Yeager), Suzie McGrath (Tam Ryvora), Dee Bradley Baker (Security Guard / Ugnaught Vendor), Donald Faison (Hype Fazon), Jason Hightower (Captain Doza), Jonathan Lipow (Glitch / Al / Stormtrooper #2 / Fuel Tanker Captain), Lex Lang (Major Vonreg / Stormtrooper #1), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (4D-M1N / Freya Fenris / Jooks), Matthew Wood (Security Droid #1 / Security Droid #2), Myrna Velasco (Torra Doza), Tovah Feldshuh (Aunt Z)

Notes: Captain Doza’s administrative droid is 4D-M1N – “l33t” speak for “admin”.

LogBook entry by Earl Green