The World of Daniel

Trek Review: The Cloud Minders & The Savage Curtain

2012-02-15T16:52:00.003+11:00

The Cloud Minders
Kirk and Spock arrive at Ardana to pick up supplies of zenite to assist with a botanical plague threatening Merak II. Whilst there, they are attacked by terrorists and get caught up in a struggle between the workers and higher classed society in Stratos, a huge city floating in the clouds.

Our duo soon discover that there is severe inequality on Stratos where the troglites are being forced to work endless hours in the mines for the benefit of the more educated population living in Stratos. The troglites don't gain from any of their work.

One of the terrorist leaders manages to kidnap Kirk, but he manages to turn things around and while trapped in one of the mines, has the High Adviser beamed to their location so he can witness the conditions first hand. Meanwhile, Spock develops an interest in the High Adviser's daughter, Droxine.

This wasn't a bad episode, the message was clear from early on but done quite well. My only nitpick would be that Spock appears slightly out of character here in sharing intimate details with Droxine and his appreciation of the Stratos society. Some of the fight scenes could have been improved but this may have been due to the poor budget available for the series at the time.

Nevertheless, a reasonable episode from what feels like a mediocre season.

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Savage Curtain
While exploring a desolate planetoid, the Enterprise encounters President Abraham Lincoln floating in space, talking to the crew. He is given a full tour of the ship before bringing Kirk and Spock with him to the planet's surface where Spock meets the legendary Surak. Soon enough, a creature in the form of a steaming dung heap (later informed to be hot lava) pits the four 'peacemakers' against four of the universes most renowned adversaries including Genghis Khan and Klingon legend Kahless the Unforgettable, who is apparently very good at doing impersonations.

Cue a revisit to the storyline from the Season One episode Arena, with four vs four and you have this episode sorted out. The difference being that a portion is taken up with President Lincoln being offered a tour of the ship with another look at the Original Series dress uniform on our senior staff members.

I will say this episode was good to introduce us to other interesting figures through history, notably Kahless (who would be mentioned in the remaining Trek series) and Colonel Green from Earth's 21st Century (would come back in Enterprise). What's not so convincing were the fight scenes (again) and how good eventually managed to win over evil, even when outnumbered two to one.

Not sure I liked this episode so much, so it gets an overall rating of 5.5/10

There remain two episodes for the series, it will be interesting to see how it all ends...

Discovering Pink Floyd - Beyond the Dark Side of the Moon

2012-02-11T10:03:00.004+11:00

I'm writing this while listening to some of the best music in the world for inspiration and reference...

Following my review of The First Seven Pink Floyd albums it's about time I got around to the last seven and arguably the most recognised albums from Pink Floyd's catalogue, starting with Dark Side of the Moon, including the popular Wish You Were Here, The Wall and on to The Division Bell.

I've already confessed I had much less knowledge of the first seven albums, so I feel that this review should be easier - we'll see!

Dark Side of the Moon is easily the most popular and most recognised Pink Floyd album ever. It was this album that elevated the group into greatness and there are statistics surrounding this album to this day that are amazing - like that it remained in the Top 200 albums chart for over 700 weeks, remaining in the chart from release in 1973 through to 1988! Dark Side of the Moon introduced the concept album to Pink Floyd which would provide them with more success in the future. The album's popular songs include Time and Money, which are also favourites for radio stations around the world. The Great Gig in the Sky is also a recognisable song - an interesting and powerful 'instrumental' track.
One of my father's favourite tracks is Eclipse, which follows from Brain Damage. He and I were able to see Roger Waters' live show of this album in 2007 and it was a brilliant concert to behold.

Wish You Were Here is most recognised for the multiple parts that make up the intro and outro tracks Shine On You Crazy Diamond. Five parts make up the beginning of the album and the remaining four close out the end. Each of the songs from Wish You Were Here seem to be popular among radio stations including shortened versions of Shine On You Crazy Diamond and the title track Wish You Were Here, while Welcome to the Machine and Have a Cigar aren't uncommon. The album has a more relaxing feel to it and interestingly is quoted as being a favourite of band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour.

Animals feels like the forgotten album of this era of Pink Floyd. Along with The Final Cut, I had never recalled any of its songs. Happily though, Animals is a decent album with some great tracks on it. The feel of Animals is slightly different to the other albums, faster beats and riffs helps lift the three middle songs Dogs, Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Sheep.

The Wall. For me, this is the definitive Pink Floyd album. With famous lyrics like 'We don't need no education' from the powerful and perhaps controversial song Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 and the awesome guitar solos that would come out of Comfortably Numb. Add the fact that this double-CD album would be made into a movie - what's not to like? The rebellious lyrics can be misunderstood by those of a younger age but helped in the appeal of the album. Other standout songs such as Mother and Run Like Hell appeal for different reasons. I would say the first half of the album works for me more than the second which ends in the operatic 'court sequence' of songs, but the second half does include the aforementioned Comfortably Numb.
I am really looking forward to seeing Roger Waters' live show of The Wall this coming week. If it is anything like Dark Side of the Moon from 2007, we should be in for a treat!

The Final Cut (as it turns out) was released four days after I was born in 1983 and is a look at the Falklands War that took place the year prior. It wouldn't be until I re-watched the movie for The Wall that I also realised that several songs from this album helped make up the soundtrack that accompanied the movie, also released in 1982. Of the latter Pink Floyd albums, The Final Cut is probably the weakest and has no real standout tracks on it (for me). It's outright political (or anti-political) messages aren't what I have come to know and appreciate of Pink Floyd's work. Unlike the album Animals, which features some fine pieces.

A Momentary Lapse of Reason begins the 'end' of Pink Floyd. Released in 1987 with the band mostly reformed (Richard Wright returns, but Roger Waters has departed), it features the final change in sound for the band and Gilmour's influence is able to shine through in vocals and sound. Perhaps another thing to like about this album is the first single released, titled Learning to Fly which shares Gilmour and Mason's love of flying. The following single On the Turning Away is another uplifting song for the album. Interestingly, the darker tones of The Dogs of War are quite likeable (to me) but this song wasn't converted into a single and let's not forget the awesome album ending track, Sorrow.

The Division Bell brings about the end of Pink Floyd. Interestingly, the album was released in 1994, the longest gap between successive Pink Floyd albums. The undeniable theme of the album being communication/talking with songs such as Keep Talking and Lost for Words. The first single from this album, Take it Back features an uplifting feel to it, while the final song and last single released, High Hopes is slower and more reflective. An impressive song nonetheless which harks back to their simpler and earlier days in Cambridge. Interestingly, even my wife commented that this was a nice sounding album when she overheard it for the first time.

All up - purchasing the Discovery Box Set was definitely worth the money in allowing me to review the entire catalogue of one of the best bands of the 20th century. While I know Pink Floyd will never release another album, or tour together (Rest in Peace - Richard Wright), I am still glad that Roger Waters chooses to tour and has brought us Dark Side of the Moon and soon, The Wall. I am also grateful for the impressive cover bands out there, bringing the music to all generations. Music like this needs to be remembered and passed along.

Trek Review: Requiem for Methuselah & The Way to Eden

2012-02-04T16:40:00.003+11:00

Season Three and the Original Series is starting to come to an end as we get into the last few episodes...

Requiem for Methuselah
With most of the crew suffering from the deadly Rigellian fever, the Enterprise arrives at a planet to gather ryetalyn, the key ingredient for the antidote.

On the surface, Kirk, Spock and McCoy come under attack from a robot which is halted by the arrival of an old man named Flint.

Flint claims the world is his and asks the landing party to leave regardless of their situation. Kirk orders the Enterprise to lock phasers on their coordinates which forces Flint to back down.

Flint instructs his robot, M-4 to retrieve the ryetalyn and invites the landing party to his place, a massive castle where they meet another, a woman named Rayna. Flint invites Kirk and Rayna to get to know each other, with consequences for everyone.

Kirk develops feelings for Rayna while the landing party are continuously delayed both directly and indirectly by Flint who reveals that he is an immortal who has lived for many milennia and
bore the names of several famous human's such as Brahm's and Da Vinci. The landing party eventually discover that Rayna is in fact an android, created by Flint to be his companion. Kirk becomes determined to let Rayna be free and choose her own destiny - but her conflicting emotions and feelings for both Flint and Kirk cause her to die.

With the ryetalyn in hand, the Enterprise crew are able to be cured. It is also discovered that Flint will eventually die.

I'll be honest and say that there wasn't much keeping me interested in this episode and it just appeared to be another 'filler' for the Season. All right up until the very end. Kirk realises his actions were less than honourable and Spock does not understand why the Captain is grieving so much. McCoy explains it to Spock and pities the Vulcan for not being able to relate. But the one thing Spock does at the end of the episode to help Kirk, his friend made this episode worthwhile.

I wasn't keen on the idea of an immortal like Flint actually being the same person as Brahms and Da Vinci, but I guess they had to relate the character to some well known icons from Earth's past to drive home the point.

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Way to Eden

This is the episode of the space hippies! The Enterprise is in pursuit of a space cruiser, the Aurora which has been commandeered by a group that are in search of the planet Eden.

The group begin infiltrating the ship's crew to find out about the Enterprise and its operations and to win people over for their cause should they wish to follow. Their leader, Dr Sevrin is deemed insane by Spock, but Spock does agree to help the group in their search.

While performing a concert for the crew, others from Sevrin's group go about taking control of the ship and plot a course for Eden - through the Romulan Neutral Zone.

On arrival, Sevrin and his group steal a shuttle to the planet surface. Kirk and crew pursue to find one of Sevrin's followers dead from eating a poisonous fruit and Sevrin with burns on his feet from the acidic grass. The planet is ultimately deadly to humans, but Sevrin continues to explore and eventually dies. The rest of the group are brought back to the Enterprise which leaves the Neutral Zone without incident.

A bit of a silly episode that also provides a bit of fun. There are some good moments between Spock and the 'hippies' and the musical instruments of the 23rd century include a Sword with strings and a bicycle wheel - what's not to like? "Herbert! Herbert! Herbert!"

Overall Rating: 6/10

Trek Review: The Mark of Gideon, That Which Survives & The Lights of Zetar

2012-01-24T18:43:00.004+11:00

The Mark of Gideon

Kirk finds himself on an almost empty Enterprise and tries to find out what has become of his crew.

The Enterprise is at planet Gideon, a candidate for Federation membership as it is reported to be a paradise and free of disease. However, a sensor jamming shield is in place and the Gideon Council have asked the crew not to scan their planet surface. Providing coordinates for Kirk's beam down directly to the council chambers. However, Kirk does not materialise there forcing a diplomatic standoff between Spock and crew against Hodin and the Gideon Council.

It is later discovered that the coordinates provided were wrong and Kirk was in fact beamed elsewhere - a duplicate Enterprise, where he meets a girl wandering the ship as well, named Odona.

As events unfold, Kirk learns that Odona's planet is filled to the brim with people, while here, on the duplicate Enterprise she feels free. Odona's planet ultimately is Gideon and once she begins feeling ill, her father, Hodin appears. The Gideon deceived Kirk in order to infect the population with mortal illness, Kirk being the donor.

Kirk refuses and Spock, who defies orders to beam down to Gideon, is able to assist in bringing Kirk and Odona back to the Enterprise where Odona is treated and cured.

This episode covers the issue of overpopulation. Made worse that planet Gideon has no disease and the people don't believe in birth control. The council went to extraordinary lengths here. How they were able to gain access to the plans for the Enterprise in order to create a convincing replica of the ship is unknown. No doubt they had the resources and people to construct it, but it's a very elaborate thing to have done. The episode also touches on diplomatic red tape and different departments within the Federation and Starfleet not wanting to cooperate or assist a starship so far away. It was interesting noting Spock's own 'frustration' at negotiating with Hodin and this eventually leads to Spock acting against orders.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

That Which Survives

Investigating an extraordinary planet, Enterprise crew members are seeing the image of a beautiful woman whose touch will kill them.

Kirk, Spock, Sulu and geologist D'Amato beam to the planet's surface as the transporter chief is killed. The landing party are then unable to contact the Enterprise and experience an earthquake. Simultaneously, the Enterprise is sent 990.7 light years away in an instant.

The landing party are stranded and cannot locate the Enterprise in orbit. On a search for food, D'Amato encounters the woman and is killed. Light years away, the Enterprise crew are working to return to the planet when an engineer is also killed - but is able to alert Scotty to the woman's presence.

Heading towards the planet at maximum Warp (8), the engines begin racing out of control - having been sabotaged. Spock and Scotty work to stop the engines from destroying the ship in the nick of time while Kirk, McCoy and Sulu face off against three versions of the woman named Losira. Spock and a landing party are able to beam down in time and destroy a central computer controlling the woman's image.

It turns out the planet was an outpost for the Kalandan's, a race that was wiped out by a disease with Losira being the last survivor. She programmed the computer to defend against other lifeforms. Taking her image, the computer destroyed anything it came into contact with but had one flaw, it replicated Losira's personality and could regret killing life forms.

This episode deals with the mystery of a planet that shouldn't exist and a strange woman who kills on touch. The Enterprise breaks all the speed records by travelling at Warp 13, but I'd assume this is before the recalibrated warp scale of the 24th century Star Trek's comes into effect.

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Lights of Zetar

The Enterprise is transferring Lt Mira Romaine, a woman Scotty has become romantically involved with, to Memory Alpha, the Federation's central library when it encounters a strange energy storm. Intercepting it en-route to Memory Alpha, the storm penetrates the ship's shields.

Crew members all feel as though they have been attacked in some way, but Lt Romaine seems most affected, collapsing on the bridge. Meanwhile, the storm resumes course for Memory Alpha and engulfs the entire planetoid. Mira is somehow aware of the attack and sees the Memory Alpha staff dead in a vision. When the Enterprise arrives, most of the staff are found dead, except one woman who appears consumed by coloured energy and dies as the energy leaves.

Kirk orders pursuit of the cloud and fires phasers as a warning shot at first and then directly into the phenomenon, which injures Lt Romaine. Somehow the storm and Mira have become connected. The storm enters the ship and appears to the crew as coloured lights. The lights take over Lt Romaine and identifies themselves as energy beings from the dead planet Zetar. They take claim to Lt Romaine's body but Scotty refuses. McCoy puts Romaine's body into a pressurisation chamber and activates it, eradicating the Zetar.

The ideas in this episode are interesting and the only visual reference of Memory Alpha occurs here. However, the episode seems to lack any pace, and while it was nice to see Scotty have a girl for a change, his infatuation and neglect of his duties as a result seemed out of character and annoying as a viewer, and for Kirk it would seem.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10

Trek Review: Whom Gods Destroy & Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

2012-01-22T20:51:00.003+11:00

Whom Gods Destroy

Kirk and Spock arrive at the Elba II asylum and meet Dr Cory, governor of the penal colony. The colony has recently taken a new inmate, Garth of Izar who was a famed Fleet Captain of Starfleet prior to going insane. His exploits are required reading at Starfleet Academy.

It is soon revealed that Garth has learned how to morph himself into any other form and he was portraying Dr Cory when he met Kirk and Spock. Garth's plan is to take over the Enterprise and leave the penal colony to take revenge against his former crewmembers. In an attempt to beam up to the ship while portraying Kirk, Garth is stopped when he is unable to reply to Scotty's transport code word.

Garth attempts to get the code sign from Kirk, who refuses. At a dinner feast he tortures Dr Cory in one of the colony's rehabilitation chairs which has been modified to cause pain. Garth tries many times to get the code and even kills one of his 'own', Marta with an explosive device.

One last struggle takes place in the transporter room of Elba II. Garth has morphed into a Kirk lookalike and Spock must determine the correct Kirk. Following a fight and Spock determining the correct Kirk, a security detail from the Enterprise beams down to restore order in the colony.

Sadly, this episode feels like a direct copy of the Season One episode 'Dagger of the Mind'. Right down to the chair (which was reused from that episode) that causes pain (alters the mind or whatever). It makes you wonder why the Federation continues to have these outposts and colonies with minimal staff entrusted with their upkeep and monitoring. Thankfully, Dr Cory survives this episode.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

On their way to a decontamination mission, the Enterprise encounters a stolen shuttlecraft from Starbase 4. Bringing the shuttle aboard, they find an interesting alien who is black on his left side and white on the right. He identifies himself as Lokai from Cheron and Kirk informs him that he'll be returned to Starbase 4 to face charges of theft of the shuttlecraft.

Continuing on their decontamination mission, a small and invisible ship nearly collides with the Enterprise, disintegrates and transports its pilot, Commissioner Bele to the bridge. Bele's skin colours are reversed from Lokai's and he asks to apprehend Lokai as he has been in pursuit of him for over 50,000 years!

Bele and Lokai's people possess some interesting powers and Bele is able to commandeer the ship and turn it towards Cheron. Kirk and crew activate the auto-destruct sequence to stop Bele. He relents for a time, before he sabotages the system and takes the ship to Cheron. Upon arrival, they find the planet devoid of any life and cities in complete ruin. It would appear the population has mutually annihilated itself. Enraged, both Bele and Lokai fight each other and eventually chase each other down to the dead planets surface - the last two members of their race.

An interesting episode that isn't so subtle about the message it's trying to portray. The racial prejudice between Bele and Lokai may seem trivial to our eyes, but it drove a planet to complete destruction. Some interesting camera techniques are used with facial close ups during the auto destruct activation and quick zooming when Red Alert is called across the ship.

One of the most memorable episodes of The Original Series and about to receive the highest rating of Season 3 so far: Overall Rating 7.5/10

Trek Review: The Empath & Elaan of Troyius

2012-01-15T22:57:00.003+11:00

It's been a little while since I've written up a Trek Review, what with the wedding, honeymoon, Christmas and New Year all 'getting in the way', I've not had much of a chance. The truth is that I watched the first of these two episodes prior to all those events occurring!

Anyway, here we are, continuing my reviews of science fiction. I expect we'll finish up the Original Series, at least the TV episodes early in the year as we're already passing the half way point of Season Three...

The Empath

The Enterprise is sent to retrieve a scientific crew on a planet whose sun is about to go nova. Upon arrival, they find the research station deserted.

Soon enough, the landing party of Kirk, Spock and McCoy find themselves deep underground where they find a woman who appears to be unable to communicate. McCoy decides to call her Gem.

Shortly after, two other aliens, identifying themselves as Vians appear. They have been conducting experiments and the landing party soon find the two science researchers on display in a laboratory as specimens. Gem also appears to have the ability to heal others through touch as demonstrated with a cut to Kirk's forehead.

Kirk and McCoy are submitted to similar experiments at the hands of the Vians. When McCoy is found on the verge of death, it is revealed the Vians wanted to see if Gem would sacrifice herself to save another. This would then prove her species was worthy of saving.

Kirk is able to reason with the Vians who have lost their way and forgotten the importance of their mission. They heal McCoy and leave with Gem.

This is one of the episodes where it's clear that there was little to no money left for the series regarding production value. Almost the entire episode is shot in a black/dark room. While I understand the story, its slow pace doesn't make for entertaining viewing and the Vians are purely despicable in their actions and carelessness towards Gem and their victims.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Elaan of Troyius

The Enterprise is on an important mission to transport Elaan, Dohlman of Elas to an arranged marriage on Troyius.

The marriage is designed to bring two planets together in peace. Troyius Ambassador Petri is aboard ship to assist in teaching Elaan more 'civilised' manners.

Things don't go so well, with Elaan used to complete obedience from everyone around her. She is instantly disappointed with the quarters supplied for her and attempts to kill Petri. Kirk tries to reason with her using a different tactic to Petri but Elaan is eventually able to exert control over the Captain when he wipes away her tears which have a biochemical reaction with any male who comes into contact with them.

Meanwhile, one of Elaan's guards attempts to sabotage the ship and Spock discovers they are being shadowed by what ends up being a Klingon cruiser.

A more entertaining episode with a somewhat convenient conclusion to events, we get to see some cultural diversity and a bit more of the diplomatic side of the Federation. Kirk gets in to bed with another woman and Scotty continues to prove he's a miracle worker while the Klingon's harass the Enterprise once more. It's all here!

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Best of 2011

2012-01-06T17:45:00.005+11:00

It seems there's not much I'll experience these days without making some attempt to review and rate it. Movies are easy and restaurants are places we've been rating amongst friends for some time now. At the end of 2010 I started 'awarding' items from throughout the year such as concerts, movies and shows, so I thought I'd do the same for 2011...

Best Life Event: Our wedding - December
Runner-up: My first new car purchase - March

2011 was a bit sparse on major events as it was all leading up to one major event at the end of the year. Filled with planning and putting everything together for that special day, our wedding quite easily takes the top award for the year. 2011 saw us share three other weddings among friends (well, two actually) starting with Kate and William's globally televised Royal Wedding. In June we witnessed Eleonor's eldest brother and his bride, Megan get married at Watson's Bay and in October, two months before our special day we attended Jess & Eugene's wedding at the Chinese Gardens.

With very little going on, I did buy myself a new car as a sort of birthday present - and that's not something to be sneezed at, but it just doesn't compare to a wedding!

Best Holiday: Matamanoa Island Resort, Fiji - December
Runner-up: Canberra, ACT - April

Using the same excuses as above, we just didn't have time to travel as much as we have been known to in the past (see 2008!) so again it's easy to see that from the two holidays we did take, our wonderful honeymoon to Fiji would win here. Fully funded as a gift from my parents we were treated to fantastic weather, beautiful people and an amazing time that felt just like a honeymoon should. I'll get around to covering it in a bit more detail on this blog some time soon :)

In contrast, during the cold of Autumn we took a drive to Canberra over the Anzac weekend but still managed to have a good time catching up with an old friend whilst down there and revisiting landmarks and sites I hadn't seen since I was a primary school boy!

Best Restaurant: Brazilian Restaurant Churrascaria, Concord
Runners-up: Steel, Sydney & Il Piatto - Horsley Park

2012 will be the third year of recorded restaurant reviews and the benchmark continues to be raised. 2011 added three restaurants to the list scoring 9 out of a total 10 points, the most impressive of any year while 2010 still remains the only year to feature a restaurant score an elusive 9.5 in my eyes. Funny enough, 2010 also managed to score the lowest rating for a restaurant, a dismal and forgettable 1, while 2011's lowest score was 4.5.

The top accolade goes to the surprising Brazilian Churrascaria in Concord scoring 9/10. It was by chance we even visited this place on a whim with friends but the stars aligned as we were able to park, grab a table and put our taste-buds through such an amazing experience. Every new meat that came to our table was perfection and only bettered by the next sampling that would come to our plates. Definitely recommend checking this place out! Even without Brazilian dancers to introduce a party atmosphere, the party was in your mouth!

Early in the year Eleonor and I visited Steel Bar and Grill and were very impressed with this unique looking restaurant in the north Sydney CBD. It lives up to its name with Steel making up the interior decor, service was fantastic and the food was brilliant making Steel well deserving of a 9/10.

Finalising the podium is iL Piatto from Horsley Park. I took a chance on visiting this place from a work colleague and it become one of few restaurants we visited twice during 2011. The first visit was a surprise with excellent service and food on offer. Our friends were amply impressed giving it high praise and it's score of 9/10. The second visit wasn't as highly acclaimed, but due to the initial review and the problems in our second visit not being the direct fault of the staff or the venue, the 9 remains in place :)

Best Movie: The Adventures of Tintin - The Secret of the Unicorn 4.5/5
Runners-up: X-Men: First Class 4/5, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol 4/5
Special mentions: Super 8 4/5, Transformers: Dark of the Moon 4/5

There were no 5's in 2011 and I had to wait until the end of the year to find a movie that would break out of the 4's. I highly anticipated the release of Tintin from earlier in the year when I first heard about it. Of course, Australia received the film in cinemas much later than the rest of the world as well, but Tintin wins for this year with a great adventure story shot in amazing motion-captured 3D that betters Avatar (in my opinion) and remains true to the original comics and animated series.

A surprise for the year was X-Men: First Class. I originally watched this movie with Dad, intending to see Super 8 but we somehow were given the wrong tickets. First Class was an entertaining and action packed movie. I never saw Wolverine but never heard a good review about it. The origin story in First Class was well done and I was impressed by the soundtrack too.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol scored 4/5 for being a decent action movie continuing the franchise and showing off amazing sights from Moscow, Dubai and Mumbai. Those in charge of James Bond should take note, this is how you make a movie!

Super 8 was a decent movie (scoring 4/5) that copped some flack about its ending but didn't disappoint me, and finally, Transformers: Dark of the Moon made it with a score of 4/5 for tying up the Transformers saga in the best installment since the original.

Best Concert: Disturbed, Asylum Tour
Runners-up: Gotye & Arrebato Ensemble

I had thought we only saw one concert in the year but I had forgotten about the shows at the Opera House that included Gotye and Arrebato Ensemble.

Disturbed wins purely based on production value and size, they performed the only concert in a large venue this year but Gotye was wonderfully surprising for a group/person I hadn't heard much about prior and is only now becoming more popular due to radio play. Arrebato Ensemble fall into a similar category and put on a decent show of latin music - we even enquired about having them play at our wedding!

Best Album Release: Evanescence, Self Titled
Runners-up: Alter Bridge - III, Limp Bizkit - Gold Cobra
Special mentions: Pink Floyd - Discovery Set, Rammstein - Made in Germany

This was a difficult segment with so many of my favourite bands releasing albums after a long time off the scene. Limp Bizkit did a great job with Gold Cobra, bringing back their old sound and hitting hard with great riffs and questionnable lyrics. Alter Bridge released their amazing album III to follow up from Blackbird with a revived sound and more awesome riffs. The award goes to Evanescence though - Amy Lee fronts a band that has gone through a massive transformation since their last release and even with this new sound apparent, the new album is still recognisable as Evanescence.

It would be unfair to rate all 14 of Pink Floyd's album releases against those three above but I can't go without mentioning their Discovery Box set that came out in 2011, their entire catalogue re-released with new packaging and a must buy for me as a fan of their newer music, this set allowed me to appreciate their full range of music and become the envy of my Dad who had a few holes in his own Floyd collection :P

Similarly it would be unfair to rate Rammstein's Made in Germany release which includes one new song, 'Mein Land' and remixes of their popular songs, but I will make sure to mention (and possibly review) their Super Deluxe Edition once it arrives for this crazy Rammstein fan :P

2011: The Year of the Wedding

2012-01-02T15:59:00.004+11:00

2012 is well under way, I go back to work tomorrow for the first time since November. That old feeling that time is going too fast remains and it could be because 2011 was such a busy year and such an important one. How was 2011 now that I can look back on it?

The most significant event of the year involved our wedding which was held on a (fortunately) day that was clear of rain and too much heat. While our investigations and information gathering had begun at the end of 2010, we really had to get everything ready in 2011 - we had no choice! The final 6 months leading up to our special day were the most frantic of the year's worth of planning. We became well aware we were running out of weekends and days to get everything done. I might aim to blog about the adventure that involves planning a wedding at some point down the track!

Aside from ours in December, 2011 saw the wedding of Kate & Prince William, my now in-law's Megan and Henry and uni friends of Eleonor's, Jess & Eugene.

My aging (but still favourably looked upon) Ford Cougar was replaced in March after much debate over whether I could keep her and the ongoing maintenance/surprise costs when things went wrong. Where there's one saving there's another debt though and purchasing my new Ford Focus XR5 Turbo means I'm back to paying a loan for the ownership of a car. Thankfully though there's been no surprise failure or breakage that I've had to take her into the dealership for.

My aviation interests saw a further decline in my diecast model collection which will continue into 2012 to hopefully (and finally) get it down to a specific criteria. I spent a fair bit of time at Sydney Airport in 2011 for spotting occasions and acquired a new Canon 600D DSLR at the end of the year for improved photos. My YouTube channel, AbraxasVideo grew to 102 videos by the end of 2011 with many more to come. My chronological upload order means I'm uploading content from late 2008 at the moment. Three years behind!

Musically, I continued playing guitar and impressed myself with learning songs from Pink Floyd and Metallica. We only attended one concert this year, by Disturbed. A fun and high-energy show as always, 2012 already has two concerts lined up in February.

After a few quiet years following motorsports I am now definitely a Formula 1 fan - a supporter of Team Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes. They had a good year in 2011, although one driver definitely had a better year than the other, both Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are great characters on and off the track. With the Australian Grand Prix falling on my birthday 'weekend' in 2012 we're all set with flights and accommodation to see, hear and feel the F1's roar around the Melbourne Albert Park circuit - can't wait!

Even with the busy planning through 2011 we managed to get away over the Easter break to our nation's capital, Canberra. We ran the new car in and caught up with an old friend while down there exploring the sights. I hadn't been to Canberra since I was in primary school in 1994 so it was worthwhile. Our second holiday of 2011 came in the form of our honeymoon to Matamanoa Island in Fiji - a beautiful location we'd recommend to anyone.

For my sci-fi interests I finished watching the series Space: Above and Beyond and we have managed to watch through the original Thunderbird's series and most of the Original Star Trek. My interest and review of these shows has contributed to 2011 receiving the most blog entries here, a total of 55 compared to the next best years; 2007 and 2010 both on 21 entries. I aim to continue with similar frequency in 2012 - hopefully these words aren't falling on deaf ears.

2012 should be an interesting year. Much lies ahead and it will be interesting to see how it all goes.

All the best and thanks to my regular readers!

See you out there :)

Wishing You All The Best for 2012!

2011-12-31T18:03:00.003+11:00

New Years Eve, 2011

Hi All,

Just a quick message to say that I haven't forgotten how to blog or about this blog at all. I've had quite a busy month from the wedding earlier, to the honeymoon and since then we've also had Christmas and everything that involves.

With less than 6 hours remaining for 2011 I wanted to thank my followers - hopefully there's a band of readers out there who aren't subscribed to this blog's writings! I wish you all the best for a prosperous 2012 whenever that comes around for you in your timezone :)

In the new year I hope to continue this run of blogging, 2011 saw me make the most amount of posts of any year I've had this blog - thanks mostly to the reviews of Star Trek episodes. I hope to keep that going as well as write up some of my experiences these past few months with the wedding planning and notes about the honeymoon and other interesting things that have been going on as well as my (traditional) year's summary for 2011.

Looking forward to 2012!

All the best,

Dan

Trek Review: Plato's Stepchildren & Wink of an Eye

2011-11-26T14:34:00.004+11:00

Plato's Stepchildren

The Enterprise is called to Platonius for a medical emergency where their leader, Parmen is close to death.

Parmen and his people model their way of life and society on the teachings of Plato. They also possess psychokinetic powers. McCoy is able to treat Parmen and is then asked to stay among the Platonian's.

McCoy refuses the offer but Parmen insists he will not be refused. Taking mind control of Kirk and Spock, Parmen attempts to intimidate and humiliate them to change McCoy's mind.

McCoy volunteers to stay in order to save his friends, to which Kirk refuses. An analysis of the Platonian's reveals that the food they consume gives them their powers. McCoy synthesises some for the landing party in order to repel the Platonians.

Uhura and Chapel are beamed down (against their will) and forced to participate in the evening's festivities where again, Parmen and his people take control of the crew in their very own lifesized puppet show. Parmen forces Kirk and Uhura to kiss and the same for Spock and Chapel.

The telekinetic abilities build inside Kirk and he is able to showdown against Parmen. Eventually winning with greater power and forcing Parmen to reform.

This episode is probably most popular for the fact it features the first interracial kiss screened on US television. It's a bit of a shame it happened in what was another 'weak' episode for the third season. While the actions of the Platonians might seem justified to themselves, it makes you wonder why they never had a physician among them and only needed one now, after 2000 years? The dancing and humiliation of Kirk and Spock was a painful enough scene, only to be repeated when Uhura and Chapel are brought down to the surface. While it was all to firstly persuade McCoy and then to entertain the Platonians, it made for an unpleasant episode.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Wink of an Eye

The Enterprise responds to a distress call from planet Scalos. Upon beaming down, the landing party finds no evidence of any life on the planet, except an insect buzzing sound. While taking a water sample, one of the landing party vanishes before McCoy's eyes.

Returning to the Enterprise to investigate further, strange things begin to happen, including the medical cabinets in sickbay being rearranged and a strange device appearing in environmental control. It cannot be disconnected or destroyed.

The ship's computer determines that an unknown force is trying to take control of the Enterprise and the crew should negotiate for terms. Kirk takes a sip from his coffee and the world around him slows down - but he has actually been accelerated.

He meets Deela, the Scalosian Queen who has hyper-accelerated Kirk into their timeframe. Kirk attempts to shoot her with a phaser but Deela is able to step aside the firing beam. At environmental control, Kirk meets Compton who was also hyper-accelerated. Compton dies from a minor scuffle shortly after and Kirk logs a report in a medical lab once he realises what is going on.

The Scalosian's are victims of radiation poisoning which hyper-accelerated their culture and made them sterile. In order to procreate, they must abduct other aliens passing by. Meanwhile, Spock realises what the buzzing sounds are and McCoy discovers the report tape that Kirk recorded in the medical bay.

Spock, McCoy and Chapel synthesise a counteracting agent and Spock then drinks the Scalosian water sample to find and assist Kirk. Destroying the device in environmental control, Kirk and Spock transport Deela and the Scalosians back to the planet's surface. The counteracting agent works when Kirk takes it and Spock remains hyper-accelerated to repair the ship before returning to our timeframe.

I thought the idea behind this episode was an interesting one, for the simple concept of a hyper-accelerated race. The only thing I'm not sure on is how Kirk and Spock were finally able to destroy the refrigeration machine when it was protecting itself in earlier scenes of the episode.

In any case it was nice to have an episode show us something different this time around.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Trek Review: For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky & The Tholian Web

2011-11-19T18:25:00.004+11:00

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

The Enterprise comes across a giant generational ship disguising itself as an asteroid on a collision course with Daran V, a planet with a population of 3.724 million.

In the meantime, McCoy finds that he has a rare and terminal illness giving him less than a year to live. Kirk informs Starfleet immediately and asks for a replacement although McCoy insists he can still perform his duties properly.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy investigate the asteroid and are set upon by a 'welcoming party' who attack them. Brought below the surface, the landing party meet priestess Natira who introduces them to their world, Yonada and the Oracle who immobilises the team with an energy beam.

Natira appears to take a liking to McCoy, which Kirk suggests he use to learn more about the civilisation living on Yonada. Natira seeks permission from the Oracle to take McCoy as her husband, which is approved if McCoy were to submit to becoming Fabrini and having the Instrument of Obedience (a pain device) installed.

Eventually, McCoy learns of a book that reveals information about the Yonada. Spock is able to use this information to reprogram the Oracle and correct Yonada's course while discovering a vast medical database that includes a cure for McCoy's illness. Natira has her Instrument of Obedience removed and stays aboard Yonada to lead her people while McCoy returns to the Enterprise.

One of the better episodes of Season Three so far with the story of a generational ship on its way to a new world for its inhabitants. Also a nice episode for McCoy to see a bit more attention and romance for a change.

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Tholian Web

The Enterprise attempts to rescue the starship Defiant when it is set upon by a Tholian ship and Captain Kirk appears lost forever.

The starship Defiant is discovered in a state of interphase, where it appears but sensors cannot detect it. A landing party from Enterprise head over to find the crew all dead, the result of an apparent mutiny. The crew appear to have suffered insanity before killing each other. The Defiant soon begins to dissolve and the landing party prepare to beam back to Enterprise. All except Kirk make it back.

Spock deduces the Defiant and Kirk have slipped into a parallel universe and interphase occurs when the two universes touch. He calculates when the next interphase should occur but the arrival of a Tholian ship changes everything. The Tholian's ask the Enterprise to withdraw from Tholian territory, but agree to allow them to stay until the Defiant reappears based on Spock's instructions.

At the calculated point, the Defiant does not appear and the Tholian's attack the Enterprise. In sickbay, an officer lashes out and is subdued by hypospray, McCoy determines that the area of space they are in affects the human nervous system. Spock orders for the Tholian ship to be disabled, which in turn sends the Enterprise adrift. Another Tholian ship arrives, connects with the original ship and they begin constructing an energy web around the Enterprise. Spock realises if the web is completed, there will be no escape.

While Spock assumes command, images of Kirk floating through the ship begin appearing to crew members. Realising Kirk is still trapped in interphase, Spock and Scotty calculate the next time he will appear and attempt a rescue, meanwhile McCoy finds a way to counteract the affects of the space around them on the crew. At the next interphase, Kirk is beamed aboard and while repelling a Tholian tractor beam, the Enterprise is propelled out of the Tholian web.

On its own, this is a decent episode - it is made all the more interesting with the follow-up/prequel Enterprise episodes 'In a Mirror, Darkly' which tell us where the Defiant ended up after the events of this episode. It's hard to determine the purpose of the Tholian web except to slowly trap a starship - the Tholian's must have more effective weapons than this. Again, the before mentioned episodes from Enterprise show the Tholian web in action.

The Defiant is the third Constitution class starship the Enterprise encounters with her entire crew dead. The other two include the Constellation and the Exeter and we shouldn't forget the Intrepid which wasn't shown on screen. The fact that McCoy is able to find a way to counteract the effects makes you wonder what the Chief Medical Officer aboard the Defiant was doing - all too often it's only the Enterprise and her crew that can overcome these things - I guess that's why we have a show about their adventures!

My only complaint is that the Enterprise's escape from the web isn't explained too well and just seems to happen. In remastered form, this episode looks great with the new effects for the Defiant and Tholian ships.

Overall Rating: 6.5/10

Trek Review: Specture of the Gun & Day of the Dove

2011-11-08T21:49:00.004+11:00

Spectre of the Gun

The Enterprise is on a mission to establish contact with the Melkotians. The crew come upon a warning buoy telling them to withdraw from Melkotian space. Kirk continues on course and beams down with a landing party on Melkot. There, confronted by a Melkotian they are to be punished for not listening to the warning buoy.

Taking an event from Kirk's mind and recreating it, the landing party find themselves in the old west. Each crew member becomes on of the Clanton's, one of two factions fighting for control of the town of Tombstone. Their enemies are the Earp's and no amount of convincing them the crew are really Kirk, Spock, McCoy etc appear to work.

Things don't go so well for the landing party as Chekov is shot and all of the plans devised by Spock & McCoy don't work - even when they should. Spock realises that nothing they are experiencing is real and it must be in their minds. Facing the Earp's at the O.K. Corral for a shootout, Spock uses a mind-meld on each crew member to convince them the bullets are not real. With this mental discipline in place, they are able to survive the Earp's attack.

With their ammunition gone, Kirk attacks the lead Earp but does not kill him. The crew are returned to the Enterprise, including Chekov who is unharmed. The Melkotian buoy destroys itself and a message from the Melkotians is received, complimenting Kirk for not killing Earp when he had the chance and extending an invitation for the Federation to establish relations.

A fun episode to return to the Wild West, even with partially finished scenery which gets around the budgetary constraints placed on the third season. Chekov gets the girl again in this episode, but dies for it! There are some humourous moments, including some odd acting by the Earp's, maybe that's how it was done in those days - it just seems a little corny by today's standards.

You would have to wonder if after all that effort, are the Melkotians really a race to be associated with the Federation?

Overall Rating: 5/10

Day of the Dove

Responding to a distress call the Enterprise investigates Beta XII-A. On the surface the landing party find no colony or debris from any that might have existed until the Enterprise is approached by a Klingon Battlecruiser that mysteriously explodes in orbit.

A Klingon landing party beam down to Kirk's location and their leader, Kang takes claim to the Enterprise for destroying his ship and over 400 crew. Kirk gains the upper hand with a delayed transport that allows him to have a security team on hand when they beam up. Unknowingly, they also bring a strange entity aboard ship that feeds on the anger of people.

Detained, the Klingon's plan to take over the ship, but Kang's wife and science officer, Mara believes that 40 vs 430 will end badly for the Klingons. Suddenly, nearly 400 of the Enterprise crew become trapped, all electronic weapons are turned into swords and other ancient weaponry and the Klingon's are able to make their move.

Spock is eventually able to track the entity aboard the ship, but not before Kang takes control of engineering and the Enterprise is sent hurtling out of the galaxy at high warp. While a battle to the death seems inevitable, Kirk attempts to convince Mara, captured by an influenced Chekov that the entity exists and that both crews need to work together to remove it from the ship.

Using the Original Series' only example of intra-ship beaming, Kirk and Mara beam directly to Engineering to convince Kang. A fight breaks out, but eventually good spirits and happy thoughts banish the entity out of the ship, just before the dilithium crystals were to be depleted.

Good conquers over evil is the obvious message in this episode. It's a good Klingon episode with Kang returning in a later Star Trek series. Some events aren't explained, such as why did the Klingon ship explode on its own (unless it was caused by the entity, but the entity was on the planet) and was there really a colony on Beta XII-A? If so, surely Kirk and crew would know about it? The opening scene is echoed in TNG's Season 3 episode 'The Best of Both Worlds' in some ways.

I'm happy to give a reasonable episode rating for a change,

Overall Rating: 7/10

Trek Review: The Paradise Syndrome, And The Children Shall Lead & Is There In Truth No Beauty?

2011-10-30T13:39:00.004+11:00

The Paradise Syndrome

Kirk, Spock and McCoy find a strange obelisk on planet Amerind. Kirk ends up inside and loses his memory after a fall and interaction with a device within. Emerging from the obelisk he is worshipped by the local inhabitants as a god prophesied to save the people from an upcoming disaster.

This is another episode where we find a duplicated development of Earth on another planet. The local inhabitants represent American Indians, a society Kirk is introduced to when he is found by two women who bring him back to their tribe.

Spock and McCoy fail to find Kirk after he goes missing (inside the obelisk) and must return to the Enterprise to avert an asteroid from colliding with the planet. Spock pushes the engines to reach the asteroid in time which reduces the power they have available when it comes to deflecting it. They must now spend the next 59 days in close proximity to the asteroid and restore power to destroy or deflect it from impacting the planet.

During this time Kirk becomes the 'medicine man' of the tribe and marries the priestess, Miramanee. They live together and Miramanee bears Kirk (Kirok)'s child. The tribe believe Kirok will be able to activate the obelisk and save them from a coming darkness (the asteroid).

A jealous Salish, the original medicine man catches Kirok out when he can't activate the obelisk. The tribe begin stoning him and Miramanee as Spock & McCoy beam to the surface, scaring them away. Spock performs a mind-meld to restore Kirk's memory and gain entry to the obelisk using the unique sound of a communicator, they activate it, ultimately deflecting the asteroid.

Not a bad episode and it spans a long amount of time (nearly two months) allowing Kirok's life in the tribe to develop with his wife Miramanee. I'm not sure if it was intentional but Spock seemed to make a number of calculated risks that don't necessarily pay off in this episode.

The remastered version benefits from updated graphics and effects as expected including a rare shot of the Enterprise firing it's deflector dish at the asteroid.

Overall Rating: 6/10

And The Children Shall Lead

The Enterprise arrives at outpost Triacus to find the colony of scientists have committed mass suicide. Their children however remain unaffected by what's happened. During transport aboard the Enterprise they summon a dark spirit who tells them to take over the ship and kill anyone who would get in their way, just as they did on Triacus.

This episode was doomed to fail (for me) as soon as a bunch of kids were placed aboard the ship to take it over. Unfortunately it doesn't help when the musical score adds in sound effects to the movements of the children pumping their fists which somehow takes control of the crew, or places horrific images in their minds. The fact that the kids can control the crew with these actions and no one thinks to remove the children instead of fall under their spell is slightly unbelievable.

Unfortunately there's not much to like or comment on with this episode. A dark entity is using the children to transport itself to the colony Markos XII where they will find 'new friends'. Markos XII is probably a stepping stone to gather more people to invade further into the Federation and mount a takeover of some sort.

Due to the annoyance of the episode and the children involved with it, it's hard to appreciate the benefits of the remastered effects. There are some decent shots of new places aboard the Enterprise including what appears to be a recreation room where the children are seen playing and eating ice cream.

Ho hum,

Overall Rating: 3/10

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

Kirk and crew are given the responsibility of transporting Medusan Ambassador Kollos and human Dr Miranda Jones to his home planet. The sight of a Medusan is so hideous it will drive any human insane. Vulcan's are able to look upon a Medusan with the use of a special visor.

Diana Muldaur returns to Star Trek to play Dr Jones in a Christmas Tree outfit. Many of the male crewmembers continuously comment on her beauty and her telekinetic abilities through training on Vulcan. Jones appears intimidated and jealous by Spock and resistant to his curiosity about Ambassador Kollos.

Larry Marvick is aboard ship as well during this time, a designer of the Enterprise's engines and a man admired by Scotty. He is also in love with Dr Jones and doesn't want her to go with Kollos. With her abilities, Jones detects that Marvick is thinking of murder and he leaves and makes an attempt on Kollos' life. Kollos reveals himself, driving the human Marvick insane. He lashes out and heads for engineering, takes control of the engines and warps the ship beyond the galactic barrier and lost. Marvick dies soon after, leaving the ship with no way of returning home.

The Medusan's have far better navigational systems and a mind-meld between Spock and Kollos is suggested so Spock can pilot the ship with Kollos' knowledge. Of course, it works and Kollos experiences what it's like to be in Spock's body and see as we do. When he returns, Spock forgets to place the visor over his eyes and is driven insane by the sight of Kollos. Dr Jones is the only one who can help Spock but she remains reluctant due to her jealousy. Kirk gets through to her and she is able to help Spock return to normal.

A decent episode and pick-up in quality from the previous one. The continuous mentions of Miranda's beauty by the male crew were a bit odd and had the subtlety of a sledgehammer. When it's realised that she is in fact blind, it makes a little more sense and also explains how she is able to be assigned to Ambassador Kollos when she is human. The Enterprise makes another trip beyond the Galactic Barrier (the most of any starship Enterprise in Star Trek I'm pretty sure).

One thing I'm not sure about is why all decks and even the transporter room had to be clear of all personnel when Kollos arrived when this wasn't done for his departure.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Season Three has had a pretty slow start in terms of ratings so far, but there's a few episodes to go yet. It will be interesting to see if there's improvement...

Discovering Pink Floyd - The First Seven

2011-10-25T18:32:00.013+11:00

For a long time and probably due to my Dad's influence I've been a fan of Pink Floyd. Much like anything passed down to me from my Dad though, I only really knew their newer, more popular works such as their epic Dark Side Of The Moon album, Wish You Were Here and The Wall.

On 23 September 2011, their entire catalogue was re-released and I chose to take the dive and buy it up in the Discovery Box set which contains all 14 of their albums as well as an exclusive 60 page special booklet of artwork. In purchasing the set, I now own more Pink Floyd albums than my father!

As I said, I didn't know much about the 'older' Pink Floyd with the exception of a few tracks such as Echoes from the album Meddle and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun from A Saucerful Of Secrets. Expanding my knowledge of their catalogue, this post will look at reviewing the first seven albums of Pink Floyd - before Dark Side Of The Moon.

The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn presents the ultimate of early Pink Floyd music and is quite a short album, more likely due to the restriction of the amount of audio that can be recorded onto an LP than anything else. The album starts with the popular Astronomy Domine and ends with the cheerful song Bike. The songs all feature a very 60's sound to them, almost likened to The Beattles. I might have to track down copies of Arnold Layne and See Emily Play, two singles that were released before this album was pieced together.

A Saucerful Of Secrets is similarly short but features some interesting songs like the opening track Let There Be More Light and dark/haunting tracks, such as Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.

Music From The Film More is an interesting listen to a soundtrack performed by Pink Floyd. It makes me interested to see what the movie is actually like just because Pink Floyd are involved with it.

Ummagumma is described on Wikipedia as an experimental album and this definitely comes through when listening to the studio album half of this 2-disc set. I wouldn't consider Ummagumma a musical album, rather a blend and mix of different noises and sounds to try to create something! The first half of this album includes live performances of songs from the first two albums.

Atom Heart Mother starts out with a nearly 24 minute anthem of the same title as the album. I remember hearing this song when my Dad was introducing me to 'early Floyd'. A short number of tracks feature on this album due to the length of Atom Heart Mother and the 13 minute Alan's Psychadelic Breakfast. The latter being a mix of different styles and more experimentation with the in-between tracks having a more folk-like sound.

Meddle is one of my favourite albums from the early Floyd era, particularly with the second half belonging to the awesome 23.5 minute long Echoes. Other notable tracks include Seamus which is about a dog and very different from the rest of the songs on the album and the intense opening track One of These Days.

Obscured By Clouds, much like the More album is a soundtrack recorded for a French film, La Vallée. The music again is quite interesting and has quite a unique sound, even for Pink Floyd. The opening track Obscured By Clouds features a deep bass feel which is unique for the band to this point while the rest of the album has a 70's rock feel about it.

The second half of Pink Floyd's discography will be easier to review as it's more familiar territory, kicking off with Dark Side Of The Moon through to The Division Bell.

Trek Review: Spock's Brain & The Enterprise Incident

2011-10-24T17:41:00.004+11:00

So we begin with Season Three, the last live action season of The Original Series. The opening episode, Spock's Brain is known for being one of the worst episodes and all I could really remember from it was McCoy operating on Spock, re-attaching his brain with the help of none other than Spock himself...

Spock's Brain

The Enterprise is approached and boarded by what appear to be an advanced alien race. They steal Spock's brain forcing Kirk and McCoy to retrieve it.

Throughout the whole series we've been constantly seeing that Spock is super smart, too smart. That Vulcan's can compute things just like a computer really makes you wonder how they're content to serve the lives they do and in Spock's case, be subordinate to Kirk.

The idea though that an alien race would take Spock's brain in order to replace the computer on their planet is a little far-fetched, even for a science fiction show. But this episode pulls out all the stops and has his brain retrieved from the computer system it's tied into and replaced back into Spock's head, with Spock assisting Dr McCoy as he does it.

I'm not sure if the episode was designed to be taken seriously or if the producer's were having a laugh. In any case, the episode doesn't rate well. However, it did bring up some interesting elements about the people who stole Spock's brain which aren't explored deeply enough.

In the remastered version there's some nice touches with the new planet effects and the clarity is as it would be expected by now.

Overall Rating: 3/10

The Enterprise Incident

The Enterprise finds herself on the wrong side of The Neutral Zone and surrounded by three Romulan ships. The Romulan Commander takes a liking to Spock while Kirk embarks on a mission to steal a new piece of Romulan technology.

One of few episodes I remember of the third season, however there is very little action in it. The Enterprise is basically on a mission of espionage to capture a new device developed by the Romulan's which allows them to appear invisible to others.

Kirk begins to display irrational behaviour while Spock keeps the attention of the Romulan Commander. McCoy then alters Kirk's appearance so he can better infiltrate the Romulan ship and steal the cloaking device. Scotty, the miracle worker is able to tie the device into the Enterprise's systems and allows their escape.

It's an interesting episode featuring one of my favourite alien races, the Romulan's but I'm not quite so sure why the Romulan Commander took such a liking to Spock so quickly. The Romulan's notoriously don't trust people easily and for her to let her guard down around Spock was just odd. Maybe they learned from her mistake.

Ultimately, Kirk and Spock are successful in their mission, though capturing a single cloaking device obviously doesn't halt the Romulan's from using it in future and the Federation don't develop their own from the device captured.

In the remastered edition there's plenty of colour and vibrancy as is to be expected. The CGI team had a bit more fun and replaced one of the Klingon/Romulan ships with a typical Bird of Prey and painted the orange bird of prey on the underside of the Klingon ships. A nice touch for the ship geeks :P

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Big Day Draws Near

2011-10-09T12:49:00.004+11:00

Something a little less than sci-fi related today. We're under 2 months away from our big wedding day and it's amazing how much we still have to do. But we're also at a point where we're ticking off the milestones one at a time and at an increased rate, so that's great as well!

In these recent weeks we have been attempting to organise some entertainment outside of what our venue is providing. This has proved a little frustrating but we think we're getting close to a solution. Just yesterday we finalised our wedding rings (not a requirement, but of symbolic importance) and we are very close to settling on some transportation for the bridal party to the venue. Suits have been arranged for myself and the best man while the bridesmaid dress is being inspected as I type.

This coming week we will be busy meeting with our marriage celebrant, cake maker and other vendors. Visits that I'm sure will become more common and more frequent as the days wind down.

Last weekend we attended our last wedding as guests before our own so we were eagerly taking and making notes on what we liked and what perhaps wouldn't work for our own day. In my last wedding as a single guy I finally caught the garter - and have no idea what to do with it now :P

While a little stressful at times, I think we have managed our time well and we have to keep in mind that there's much more to come as the days pass by.

Star Trek: The Next Generation HD

2011-10-06T18:39:00.005+11:00

To mark the nearing 25th Anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation, CBS Paramount have announced that the series will be released in high-definition on blu-ray!

Initially, a sampler blu-ray disc including four episodes will be released. The episodes include Encounter at Farpoint Parts I & II, Sins of the Father and The Inner Light. At the moment the sample is scheduled for the end of January 2012 but the seasons will follow throughout 2012, the year in which TNG will celebrate its 25th Anniversary.

I am super excited, even though I currently own the all seven seasons on DVD! They're unwatched and I'm hoping I can move them along in preparation of the jump to HD. Hopefully the release of the series will be swift and available for Region B (UK and AU) for us to enjoy it.

In the meantime I have the rest of Season 3 of The Original Series to watch on blu-ray before hitting The Animated Series and then the six original movies. So there's plenty of time for the TNG release :)

Watch the little spoiler below to see a couple of scenes from TNG in HD - Engage!

Trek Review: Star Trek The Original Series, Season 2

2011-09-26T19:48:00.005+10:00

Just like I did with Season One, I figured I'd do a summary of Star Trek's Season Two. Sometimes, the second season has more pressure to deliver as it follows up the character building that happens in the first season. For Star Trek, Season Two got off to a decent enough start with Amok Time, Who Mourns for Adonais?, The Changeling and Mirror, Mirror.

Some things that stood out from Season Two were the introduction of Ensign Pavel Chekov as the Enterprise's navigator. Throughout much of the first half of the season he was constantly suggesting that everything was invented or created in Russia which started to become annoying. Thankfully that stopped. Another recurring theme was the amount of 'parallel Earth' planets the crew visited - whether by natural evolution or outside tampering.

A number of standout episodes include Amok Time and Journey to Babel for establishing more about the Vulcan people and their culture, Mirror, Mirror which establishes the mirror universe which is revisited in later series and The Trouble With Tribbles which is one of the most fun episodes of the show and makes way for a very well done crossover with the Deep Space Nine crew in the future.

Episodes like Metamorphosis introduced us to Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of Warp Drive while The Ultimate Computer shows us Dr Richard Daystrom who is already famous and has a research division named after him in the 24th Century!

My fond memories of the action packed episodes The Doomsday Machine and The Ultimate Computer were upheld with our re-watch. A surprising episode with a bit of space battle action was also The Deadly Years.

With three fewer episodes than the first season, Season Two scores an average of 6.27/10 per episode, slightly lower than Season One's average of 6.52/10. The second season suffered from low scoring episodes such as I, Mudd (scoring 4/10) and several episodes scoring 5 and 5.5's.

It's interesting to note that there was no guarantee of Star Trek's future beyond the second season with ratings beginning to fall towards the end. Many of the later episodes of Season Two scored low from my own reviews as well.

In any case, we know there's a third and final live action season of Star Trek to cover. It will be interesting to see how these episodes rate as we'll be starting off with the infamously bad episode, Spock's Brain which I have heard so much about!

The blu-ray remaster continues to impress, with only a few episodes showing some blurring and fuzziness. As noted in the review of the episode, Amok Time featured some very impressive new scenes of the planet Vulcan and the new effects for planets and the Enterprise are welcomed throughout. The discs are packed with many easter eggs and featurettes again including more interviews and insight into what the actors are up to in more recent times like Leonard Nimoy's fascination with photography and we learn about Nichelle Nichols' singing career.

Trek Review: Bread and Circuses & Assignment: Earth

2011-09-25T12:39:00.003+10:00

The final two episodes of Star Trek's second season have arrived.

Bread and Circuses

The Enterprise discovers the wreckage of an old merchant vessel, the SS Beagle near planet 892-IV. The ship was captained by R.M. Merrick, a friend of Kirk's who aims to look for him and his 47 crew on the planet surface. The planet below is almost identical to Earth in size, mass and make up while the culture is broadcasting gladiator-type fights over television.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy are beamed down in a remote area away from cities and civilisation but are soon found by a group of runaway slaves calling themselves the 'Children of the Sun' who are evading capture themselves. With one of the slaves, Flavius, the trio head for the city to locate Merikus, First Citizen of Rome, deemed to be the same person as R.M. Merrick.

After Police capture, the landing party meet Merikus, who introduces them to Claudius Marcus, the Proconsul of the Empire. He knows who they are and where they come from and forced the Beagle crew to integrate into the society or fight in the televised gladiatorial games for the entertainment of those on 892-IV. Kirk is given the same choice with Spock, McCoy and the 400+ crew on the Enterprise.

McCoy and Spock are entered into a fight which Kirk watches but does not succumb to Marcus' demands. Spock wins against his attacker, but fouls when he assists McCoy in his fight. Kirk is eventually sentenced to death by execution, a transmission which the Enterprise intercepts. Scotty in command of the Enterprise disrupts the city's power systems which gives Kirk and crew enough time to attempt escape. With Merrick's help, they beam up - although Merrick is killed.

You really have to wonder if there can be so many parallel Earth's out there where the planet's are virtually the same, the inhabitants are just like us and events follow such a similar course. There's certainly been many examples of it this season, though this episode provides an interesting example of looking at the Roman Empire if it still existed with technological advancement into our 20th century. Seeing McCoy in a fight was interesting and learning some statistics of our violent past (or future) from Spock also opens up a little more history to how we get to the 23rd century.

Thankfully, Merrick does the right thing in the end to save Kirk, Spock and McCoy allowing them to beam back to the Enterprise and continue on their merry way.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Assignment: Earth

The Enterprise has travelled back to Earth in 1968 to observe some events in history. Interestingly, the ship is rocked as it disrupts a highly powerful transporter beam originating from thousands of lightyears away. Noting that Earth doesn't have that technology in the 20th Century, the beam is intercepted and a man, Gary Seven and his black cat, Isis materialise on the transporter pad.

Seven informs Kirk that he has been to another planet and was beaming there when intercepted by the Enterprise and asks to be sent to Earth to continue his mission of high importance, but Kirk has trouble trusting him. Seven attempts to escape but is stopped when Kirk stuns him with a phaser.

Analysing the day in history, it's determined that the United States would be launching an orbital weapons platform into orbit to challenge other powers of the Earth for supremacy and balance. Seven escapes from the brig and beams to the surface before Kirk is able to intervene.

On Earth, Seven attempts to locate two agents who have gone missing, he soon finds they were killed in a car accident on their way to the rocket launch site. Realising their mission was to disable the rocket in an attempt to stop Earth from experiencing the same fate as another planet who went through a similar arms race with (probably) catastrophic consequences.

Seven is able to get himself to the rocket and start disabling it when he is brought back prematurely by his secretary. Kirk and Spock intervene and the rocket is launched on schedule, without being properly disabled. Kirk and Spock must trust Seven to do his job by destroying the rocket at the last second to make it appear an accident.

Everything plays out as it should in the end and the Enterprise continues on her way - presumably, back to the 23rd century.

An interesting episode, a bit different from the norm and the reason appears to be that due to falling ratings, Star Trek's assured future wasn't guaranteed at the point when this episode was written. As such, Gene Roddenberry put this together to be the pilot for a spin-off series that would follow Gary Seven's adventures. Nothing became of it however as Star Trek would return for a third season.

The idea behind the episode was a good one, but ultimately it didn't feel as Trek as it could have been - this is possibly another result of it being aimed as the pilot for a new series. Intertwining an episode among events from 1968. There's a whole list of coincidences in a lot of Spock's readouts of events that would occur on the day the Enterprise was observing Earth actually did happen. It's interesting (and I'm thankful) to note that time-travel missions were never made routine again after this episode in Star Trek. I'd prefer to think that time-travel was too dangerous and other episodes and movies have shown the effects of those and contaminating the timeline of Trek since.

I believe this is the second time in the series we've visited Earth and on both occasions it was Earth of the 20th century!

Overall Rating: 5.5/10

That wraps up the second season. I'll post a brief summary of my thoughts on this run of 24 episodes shortly.

Trek Review: The Ultimate Computer

2011-09-17T09:55:00.003+10:00

Getting down to the end of Season Two now with an episode I remember as being another of my favourites from the series - I think it was the whole space battle thing.

The Ultimate Computer

The Enterprise is summoned to a space station without explanation until arrival. Commodore Bob Wesley, commanding the Lexington informs Kirk that the Enterprise will be a test ship for a new computer system, the M-5 Multitronic Unit, designed by Dr Richard Daystrom. Many of the crew disembark the Enterprise as they aren't needed due to M-5 being able to automate all of the ship's systems.

After some really basic tests dealing with the navigation systems there would be a wargames exercise with other Federation ships. M-5 performs the navigation tasks well and responds to a surprise attack from two starship's including the Excalibur. The ships flee from their surprise attack, but M-5 tracks a slow moving vessel, an automated cargo ship named Woden. Though posing no threat, the M-5 pursues and destroys the Woden before resuming course. None of the bridge crew were able to disable the M-5 before the attack.

M-5 has protected itself in engineering, making disabling the computer at the source impossible. An engineering ensign is killed when M-5 makes a direct power connection to the warp engines. The crew are unable to do anything and cannot communicate with the approaching Federation starships for the wargames exercise.

Wesley hails M-5, informing it that the exercise is a drill and that weapons should be on reduced power. M-5 acknowledges but attacks first with weapons at full power, destroying the Excalibur. M-5 continues firing on the other ships with the Lexington taking casualties and the Potemkin and Hood retreating.

Kirk appeals to M-5 and eventually convinces the computer that in attempting to protect itself it has committed murder. M-5 does not believe this until it scans the destroyed starship Excalibur and finds no lifesigns. In response, the M-5 shuts itself down, effectively killing itself for the act of murder.

Kirk orders the Enterprise shields dropped and weapons disarmed as Commodore Wesley approaches in the Lexington with orders from Starfleet to destroy them. Seeing the ship is a sitting duck, Wesley calls off his attack.

This episode takes a stand against the continued influence of computers in our lives. We see Kirk on many occasions looking lost and against losing his job to a computer. Ultimately we learn that the M-5 is unable to make decisions or courses of action that a human, or any other sentient life form would be able to and arguments for this are brought up throughout the episode from McCoy and Spock.

The remastered episode introduces some new sequences for the Space Station, the cargo ship and the wargames exercise.

Still a good episode in my eye, mainly for the space action involved but the light hearted ending, common in this era of science fiction really takes away from any impact that probably should have been felt with the loss of approximately 500 officers, including all of those aboard the Excalibur and some of those aboard the Lexington.

Dr Richard Daystrom is seen as a bit of a mad man in this episode, driven by his passion to create something far greater than he's already been acknowledged for. McCoy touches on this in the episode as well and we learn in future series that a scientific branch is named in his honour, The Daystrom Institute, circa 24th Century.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Sci-Fi Review: Space Above & Beyond, Second Half

2011-09-12T22:35:00.004+10:00

Continuing from my review of the first 12 episodes of the sci-fi series Space: Above and Beyond, this entry will look at the final 12 episodes of the show that lasted a single, but worthwhile season.

In the second half of the series, each episode is given an opening monologue, spoken by Colonel T.C. McQueen, explaining the story so far and why Earth is at war in space. The second last episode has an additional monologue from Captain Vansen about the origins of life.

One thing notable in this half of the series is the story arc of Nathan West searching for his lost love, Kylen goes quiet. West appears much more focused on his role as a marine, along with the others of the 58th. It definitely feels like we're past all (or most) of the character development episodes and the series begins to make some strides and progress with the main story arcs started in the first half.

There is less emphasis on any political and Aero-Tech storylines now, but the Silicates re-emerge in the episode 'Pearly' where Paul Wang nearly betrays the 58th to save his honour from an earlier encounter in the series.

Space: Above and Beyond appears to be like an early version of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. The episodes 'Never No More' and 'The Angriest Angel' are very similar to the BSG episode 'Scar' where there is a single enemy fighter out there picking off our people and instilling fear in our forces. It takes a determined fighter pilot to finally finish the enemy off in a one-on-one dogfight. The very way Space... is shot and some of the battle tactics and other elements also resemble episodes and the grittiness that made the new Battlestar Galactica such a success.

Damphousse had a story dedicated to her where it was believed she had some sort of psychic powers. I wonder if this story arc would have been picked up if the series had continued - though the finale might not have allowed that. There was also a very short time where Wang and Damphousse found they had feelings for each other, but these were never revisited.

A lot of time passes in the second half of the series, particularly in the episode 'Sugar Dirt' where the 58th and other squadrons are left to fend for themselves for over two months on a planet defending an airstrip while the Saratoga and other Earth ships departed for an operation at another, more strategically important planet.

The series ends with the two parter 'And If They Lay Us Down To Rest...' and '...Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best' where the 58th are patrolling a Chig moon for an Earth assault and come upon a single alien being. Not sure if he's the last of his kind, they tell him to leave before Earth forces arrive. Shortly after, a Chig envoy approaches the Earth fleet to discuss peace talks, however, it turns out the envoy is the same alien the 58th met on the moon's surface. The war is far from over when peace talks break down and many of the negotiators, including commanding officers of several Earth ships and Colonel McQueen are seriously injured.

In a firefight to retrieve prisoners of war from the Chigs (under agreement in the terms of the peace talks) the 58th are sent out. However, Vansen and Damphousse are separated from their ship when the cockpit is blasted off into a planet's atmosphere. Damphousse is unconscious and Vansen hopes to survive de-orbit while West, Hawkes and Wang look after the POW's. Taking more damage, Wang ends up trapped in the cargo pod and ejects from the ship, drawing the Chigs away with a manual laser cannon. West and Hawkes rescue the POW's and return to the Saratoga as Wang is killed when a destroyed Chig fighter collides with his pod.

For West, the story arc of tracking down the real Kylen comes to an end here as she is among the POW's. He briefly gets to see her before she is transported back to Earth. In the final moments, no retrieval team appears to be sent after Vansen and Damphousse, West and Hawkes see McQueen before he is taken away for medical treatment and they mourn the loss of their comrades. The series ends.

My last impressions are good. I really enjoyed watching the series. All I can remember from its original run on television was the pilot episode. I guess it would then have been pushed back to some late night time slot and I forgot all about it. Had it lasted longer, I might've caught a glimpse of it later, as happened for me with Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5. I'll admit, the reason I watched the series now was that it was a single season run of 24 episodes, something manageable and not too time wasting if I didn't like it. But I did like it, I think the series had potential and the finale has left me wondering how things would have been picked up if a second season had come around. According to the Wikipedia entry, this is how the producers chose to end the show and while Wang's death appears conclusive, did Vansen and/or Damphousse survive? What will happen to McQueen?

With the show dead for 15 years now, these questions will probably never be answered. I'm not sure if the show had the fan base to be picked up some time in the future for some sort of re-imagining or reboot. It probably doesn't need it in any case. It's fine as it is. Apparently it was released on DVD in the US market. I'd probably get a copy if it came out here.

For any sci-fi fan, give it a watch and see what you think :)

For me, I'll continue watching Star Trek The (remastered) Original Series and continue watching Dark Skies in place of Space...

Trek Review: By Any Other Name & The Omega Glory

2011-09-11T10:18:00.005+10:00

By Any Other Name

The Enterprise is responding to a distress call from a planet. Kirk and the landing party find two people on the surface who demand that Kirk surrender the Enterprise to them and with the use of a paralysis device incapacitating the landing party, demonstrates their superiority in the situation.

The two are identified as Rojan and Kelinda and are travellers from the Kelvan Empire of the neighbouring but distant Andromeda Galaxy. They were looking for a new home as radiation levels in their galaxy will make it uninhabitable. Rojan's ship was destroyed while crossing our galaxy's galactic barrier. They intend to use the Enterprise with modifications to her engines to report back to Andromeda of the suitability of planets in the Milky Way for conquering and colonising.

In another demonstration of Kelvan superiority and disciplinary action against Kirk's attempt to escape capture, two personnel (red shirts) from the landing party are turned into small inanimate objects. Rojan crushes one with his hand, killing Yeoman Thompson while he returns Security Officer Shea to life.

Kirk attempts to reason with Rojan, informing that the Federation could come to a peaceful agreement, but Rojan is adament that the Kelvan way is to conquer and rule - a fate the Federation would eventually face when the Kelvan people come.

The Enterprise is taken over by Rojan, Kelinda and their other crew members. Rojan deems that except for Scott, McCoy, Spock and Kirk, the rest of the crew are unnecessary and would use up supplies needed by his crew in the long voyage ahead. Spock and Scott can't stop the paralyser's each of the Kelvan's have, so rig the ship to explode as they cross the galactic barrier on Kirk's order. Kirk can't bring himself to do so and the ship continues toward Andromeda.

Their only hope lies with playing on the Kelvan's new-found bodies. They have transformed into humanoids so they can operate the Enterprise more effectively. Their true forms being too cumbersome. Kirk and crew soon realise that the Kelvan's are not used to sensations and emotions that come with being human and play this to their advantage. Scotty gets one Kelvan drunk, Spock and Kirk work to make Rojan jealous while Kirk introduces Kelinda to the idea of love (as Kirk does so well!) while McCoy works on another Kelvan by injecting him with stimulants after suggesting he may be ill.

In the end, a duel between Kirk and Rojan breaks out once Rojan's jealousy reaches a head. Kirk finally is able to reason with him and convince Rojan a peaceful solution can be found. The Enterprise turns around and heads home.

This was a good episode, there were certainly some interesting moments and some humours ones, particularly with Scott and his drinking buddy. However, I can't help but think that the Kelvan's were extremely short sighted with their wanting to acquire a ship to head back to Andromeda to report on their findings. That and the fact the Andromeda galaxy will still be inhabitable for many, many years just seems a little too pre-emptive. The Kelvan Empire might die out way before then!

We also see Kirk strike a woman again in this episode. He punched Lady Gaga in 'The Gamesters of Triskellion' and this time he karate chops Kelinda in the neck, despite many episodes ago telling Charlie "there's no right way to hit a woman" in the episode 'Charlie-X'.

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Omega Glory

Arriving at the planet Omega IV, the Enterprise discovers a derelict sistership in orbit, the Exeter. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Lt Galloway beam over to the ship to investigate and find the entire crew reduced to crystals. McCoy determines each crew member has had all of the water removed from their bodies and a medical log from the ship's doctor reveals it is the result of a virus and that immunity can be found on the planet's surface.

Beaming down, the landing party discover the Exeter's commanding officer, Captain Ronald Tracey. Tracey explains there is a natural immunity offered by the planet environment. Kirk and crew soon find he is in league with a group of people known as the Kohms, who are engaged in a war against savages known as the Yangs. They also find that Tracey has been supplying the Kohms with Federation weapons in their struggle, breaking the Prime Directive.

Tracey tells Kirk he was only wanting to survive and that the Kohms have lived extremely long life-spans, suggesting he has stumbled upon a fountain-of-youth. He wishes to do more research with the equipment aboard the Enterprise but the Yangs must be held at bay. Tracey asks for more phasers to help but Kirk refuses, at which point Tracey has Kirk and Spock locked up, with a Yang leader recently captured.

McCoy is able to discover that the immunity of the inhabitants and the virus that killed the Exeter crew are results of biological warfare. The longer someone remains on the planet, the stronger their immunity becomes, had the Exeter crew stayed on the planet for a few more hours, they would likely have survived. This also means Tracey's fountain-of-youth doesn't exist, what he has witnessed is natural evolution of the inhabitants on the planet.

In a Yang attack, they take over the city and capture Kirk, Tracey and the others. It is found the Yangs and Kohms represent another parallel of Earth's culture. The Yang's being Yankees (or Americans) and the Kohms representing Communists. They went to war with the Kohms winning and the Yang's fighting to regain their land ever since. Their battle standard represents and old and battered flag of the 'stars and stripes' from the United States of America.

Kirk is able to remind them of their routes by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, referred to as the 'holy words' by the Yangs. After a man-to-man fight with Tracey, which Kirk wins and Sulu and a security team beam down, Yang leader Cloud William believes Kirk to be God's servant and they are free to go.

Another message relayed in this episode that might still apply today but would have probably had deeper meaning at the time of its release. Aside from the political message we see another deranged Starfleet commander going after something that doesn't exist and going against Kirk. We don't really know what became of the Exeter after the Enterprise found her as she doesn't appear in any other shots later in the episode.

The episode also suggests that Spock has telepathic abilities when he suggests that the female Yang, Sirah bring him a communicator. Memory Alpha says this is reminiscent of an early concept that Spock had special powers over women.

It's another parallel Earth development episode and it makes you wonder how these cultures can develop the way they do - even to the fact that the Yangs have a United States flag and their Pledge of Allegiance. I would probably suggest this would be contamination from a previous Earth visit to their planet, but it's not confirmed or denied in the episode either way.

Overall Rating: 5.5/10

The 'Amok Time' fight music makes another come back, the themes are good, the story's okay but the repeat use of parallel cultures to ours is getting a bit played out at this point. With three episodes left for the second season it will be interesting to see how it goes and what the overall impression of Season Two is when we're done...

Trek Review: Return to Tomorrow & Patterns of Force

2011-09-07T23:14:00.003+10:00

Return to Tomorrow

The Enterprise is investigating strange readings and comes upon a destroyed M-class planet. The crew are then addressed by a male voice who invites them down beneath the planet surface to save Earth from facing a similar fate to the planet they are orbiting.

The voice identifies himself as Sargon and determines that Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Lt Cmdr Mulhall will beam down in a landing party.

Over a hundred miles beneath the planet surface, the landing party discover Sargon as a ball of energy. Sargon transfers into Kirk's body, with Kirk's consciousness placed in the original sphere. Sargon/Kirk introduces the landing party to two other spheres with other entities inside them and asks that Spock and Mulhall become hosts along with Kirk.

Sargon's intent is to use Kirk, Spock and Mulhall temporarily with the help of Scott aboard the Enterprise to construct android robot bodies for Sargon's people to exist in more permanently.

Spock's entity, Henoch was a nemesis of Sargon from the past and sets about attempting to kill Kirk with Sargon's consciousness in his body. Sargon is ultimately able to outwit Henoch in the end, with the help of his beloved wife, Thalassa. Sargon and Thalassa no longer need bodies once Henoch is outwitted and they send themselves into oblivion forever.

This episode was well done and included an interesting storyline, another opportunity for Spock to behave and act quite differently from the norm and the first of many appearances for actress Diana Muldaur in Star Trek.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Patterns of Force

The Enterprise arrives at planet Ekos to pick up a Federation cultural observer. Near the planet, the ship is attacked by a primitive weapon the planet's inhabitants aren't supposed to be capable of developing.

On the surface, Kirk and Spock discover a culture almost identical to Nazi Germany including motor vehicles, uniforms, salutes and their hatred of neighbouring planet Zeon.

Very much like our own history, this episode plays out with Kirk and Spock attempting to evade capture, only to be captured. The observer, John Gill turns out to be the Fuhrer of Ekos and explains he was trying to introduce the efficiency of the Nazi system without letting it get to sadism, however his deputy, Melakon began drugging Gill in order to take over.

Kirk revives Gill long enough for him to call off a devastating attack on Zeon and name Melakon a traitor. Melakon shoots Gill and is in turn killed. The resulting government proclaiming it intends to start living as the fuhrer originally had intended and to offer a new way of life for both Ekosians and Zeons.

This episode presents another opportunity for our crew to experience Earth's past without actually using time travel as the catalyst. The other example was the episode 'A Piece of the Action' where a planet had emulated Chicago's Mobsters, now we have Nazi Germany. As fun as it was seeing Spock attempt to hide his ears underneath his SS helmet, this episode didn't really capture my interest - instead it was beating me over the head with the message it seemed to be relaying about the negativity of the Nazi regime. Did they need this reminder in the 1960's, certainly not something that applies in 2011!

Overall Rating: 5/10

Trek Review: The Immunity Syndrome & A Private Little War

2011-08-24T18:25:00.006+10:00

The Immunity Syndrome

On their way to get some R&R at Starbase 6, the Enterprise receives a call which comes through as a set of coordinates and the name of a nearby starship Intrepid. Shortly after, in a scene akin to Obi Wan Kenobi's detection of the destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars, Spock goes through pain and realises that the 400 Vulcan crew of the Intrepid have died.

Investigating, the Enterprise comes upon a 'zone of darkness' where all laws of physics are reversed. Probing further the ship discovers a huge single-cell organism feeding on energy. The likely cause of the disappearance of an entire star system and the starship Intrepid.

Spock volunteers to take a shuttlecraft into the giant amoeba to find out more and ultimately helps Kirk and crew work out a way to destroy the invading virus that is on the verge of multiplying and enveloping the galaxy.

This was a fairly decent episode in what it was portraying. Our galaxy being invaded by a 'virus' made up of these huge single-celled organisms and the Enterprise and her crew playing the antibodies. What stood out for us in this episode was that Spock did not appear to be played in character. In fact, he was borderline annoying and arrogant. The banter between he and McCoy was at a different level, particularly during the time when both volunteered to fly the shuttle. Spock continuously reminded McCoy of his Vulcan superiority and even later, via transmission, Spock basically gloats to McCoy that the physician would not have survived had he been selected as pilot.

Nevertheless, the episode was decent and the remastered effects looked fantastic. It also brought us some humourous animated gifs from just after McCoy blasts Spock over the communications channel...

...and this, funnier version.

Overall rating: 6.5/10

A Private Little War

The Enterprise is involved in a scientific mission on the planet Neural. The inhabitants of the planet have remained at the same technological level for many centuries, but Kirk and Spock are surprised to see some villagers using firearms instead of bows and arrows and that the people are fighting amongst themselves when they once were peaceful towards each other.

It is soon realised that the Klingon Empire have been supplying some villagers with superior weaponry to cause conflict between the planet's inhabitants.

Though governed by the non-interference directive, Kirk makes a move to equally equip the disadvantaged side. Kirk had visited the planet before and lived with Tyree who refuses to fight, however his wife, Nona thinks otherwise and after saving Kirk following a Mugato attack, uses her kahn-ut-tu spells to influence him.

Eventually, through her own greed and impatience, Nona dies and Tyree vows to take the fight to the villagers. Triggering a war.

I figured there would have been some sort of contemporary message behind this episode and the entry on Memory Alpha points this episode to relate to the Vietnam War. The episode suggests that Eden cannot last forever and so, the paradise of Neural was taken away once the Klingon's became involved.

Strangely enough, we see Tyree become angered or at least distraught when he catches Nona and Kirk in a passionate embrace, but this is never revisited, even after her death he simply vows to avenge her and then Kirk and crew leave.

In remastered blu-ray, this episode suffers from some blurring and scenes that aren't quite as sharp as you'd expect. A lot of scenes are shot outside, on location and could be part of the reason why.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Trek Review: The Gamesters of Triskelion & A Piece of the Action

2011-08-20T11:08:00.002+10:00

The Gamesters of Triskelion

After arriving at Gamma II for a routine check of the planet's automated systems, Kirk, Uhura and Chekov are kidnapped straight off the transporter pad to a distant planet and forced to fight other aliens there for the gambling entertainment of the 'Providers'.

All of the aliens on the planet called Triskelion are basically slaves, with collars around their necks that induce pain if the wearer disobeys the wishes of the Providers.

Kirk befriends his mentor, a Lady Gaga lookalike named Shahna. Uhura and Chekov are also appointed mentors so they may learn to fight. Kirk takes the most punishment as he accepts the responsibility for the actions of his crew and so he is whipped in order to be made an example of when Uhura refuses to fight.

Finally, Kirk is able to meet the Providers, three brains claiming to be higher, superior beings who have seen it all and found that this entertainment is all they have left. Kirk challenges them to let the aliens go free and to watch them build up a free society, a proposal the Providers accept by pitting Kirk against three of the aliens. Should Kirk win, he gets to go and the Providers will free their captives from their collars.

Meanwhile the Enterprise is left with the mystery of what happened to their three crew members. After finding a high energy beam emanating from another star system, Spock orders the ship investigate while McCoy and Scotty disagree and believe the ship should never have left Gamma II. Fortunately, Spock's 'hunch' is correct and they locate Triskelion. However, the Providers take control of the ship's systems and force the crew to watch Kirk's final fight. On Kirk's victory, the Providers let the Enterprise and crew leave.

An interesting story where Kirk gets to fight and tear his shirt a lot - he even punches Shahna in the chin in order to knock her out, which was a bit of a shock! The anti-slavery message is quite clear in this one.

All up though I didn't find it that capturing, so my overall rating is 6/10.

A Piece of the Action

The Enterprise arrives at Sigma Iotia II following Starfleet receiving transmission by conventional radio from the lost starship Horizon. The Horizon had visited the planet and was lost shortly after.
Kirk takes a landing party to determine what effects the Horizon's visit would have had on the developing civilisation before Starfleet introduced the non-interference directive.

The inhabitants have based their lives on Earth's 1920's gangsters, an idea picked up from a book left behind by the Horizon crew from its visit 100 years prior. As a result, there are different 'bosses' running different areas of the town organising 'hits' in order to 'cut in' on others territory.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy get caught up in the middle of it all as two of the main bosses want more 'heaters' (phasers, I think) from them so they can have the upper hand. In the end, Kirk learns to fight fire with fire and, poorly mimicking the gangster environment around him convinces the bosses that the Federation are more powerful and 'cutting in'.

An episode with a fair bit of humour thrown in. Gangsters and our 23rd century heroes thrown together. For me, the gangster parts (the whole episode) felt a bit overdone. Obviously I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective! Kirk's way of fitting in to a society such as this was much better pulled off in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. We also see that Kirk has no idea how to drive a car - something he is actually quite good at in the 2009 movie Star Trek!

Overall Rating: 5/10

Trek Review: Wolf in the Fold & The Trouble With Tribbles

2011-08-14T11:06:00.004+10:00

Wolf in the Fold

On Argelius II Scotty is recovering from a workplace accident (caused by a female crewmember) with Kirk and McCoy enjoying the hospitality (and the women) being offered.

No sooner Scotty decides to go for a walk with one of their entertainers, she is dead, with Scotty standing nearby with a knife and blood on his hands.

Two more women are murdered with Scotty being the prime suspect in each case while the investigation unfolds.

An interesting episode though I'll admit I was distracted while watching it. I wasn't sure how Scotty would ever be found innocent as each new murder happened. In the end, the link to 'Jack the Ripper' on Earth is brought up and I'll say it sounds a bit weak and implausible but not impossible how they ended up bringing one of Earth's 'ancient legends' into the picture.

The final resolution with the beaming of Mr Hengist into deep space in order to kill the entity is a bit extreme and with the crew under a drug that eliminates fear and makes everyone aboard the Enterprise so jovial really diminishes any effect Mr Hengist's death should have had? Somehow I doubt if the entity repossessed Scotty or some other important crew member that Kirk would have so easily made the decision to have their atoms scattered throughout space?!

Overall Rating: 5/10

With that, we are now at the halfway point of the Original Series, at least that's how the Blu-Ray remastered discs have been ordered...

The Trouble With Tribbles

The Enterprise is called via Code One to Space Station K-7 in orbit of Sherman's Planet near Klingon space. Once there, they find no emergency but a very impatient and power wielding Federation official (another one) named Nilz Baris.

Baris and his aide, Arne Darvin explain they're fearful the Klingons may make an attempt to sabotage some important grain which will help the Federation establish a presence on Sherman's Planet.

Kirk orders his crew to take shore leave on K-7 with Uhura and Chekov wasting no time and meeting Cyrano Jones, who gives Uhura a cute, furry creature called a Tribble.

Unfortunately for Kirk, Starfleet orders him and the Enterprise to accommodate Baris' needs just as a Klingon Battlecruiser turns up at the station. Kirk warns the station but sees that the Klingon captain, Koloth (who looks a lot like Trelane from 'The Squire of Gothos') and his first officer Korax are already aboard K-7.

They ask for permission to take shore leave on the station, which Kirk allows under strict rules. It doesn't take long for the two crews to clash when Scotty hits Korax for insulting the Enterprise. All the while, Uhura's Tribble has managed to reproduce and create enough for everyone in the crew and continues to multiply with Tribbles appearing all over the Enterprise and K-7. Kirk, Spock and Scotty soon realise the Tribbles will be able to get into the precious grain that Baris wants so protected and as they check out the storage compartments on K-7 they find the entire supply replaced with bloated Tribbles.

Spock finds most of the Tribbles are dying or dead, the grain had been poisoned. With the Tribbles reacting badly to Klingons (and we find the feeling is mutual), Arne Darvin is ousted as a Klingon agent and he was behind sabotaging the grain. Wrapping things up for Kirk and his crew, the Enterprise leaves while Scotty deposits all the remaining Tribbles aboard the Klingon Battlecruiser.

This was a fun episode and certainly a memorable one with a decent amount of politics, crew interaction and humour. One of my main nitpicks has been brewing over a number of episodes since the introduction of Chekov as a main character - does he always have to say everything was invented or came from Russia? He's been doing it in most of the episodes he's appeared in and I hope he stops soon!

My main memory of this episode prior to watching it here was from the future Deep Space Nine episode, 'Trials and Tribble-ations'. We watched this episode (included on the blu-ray disc) afterwards and it was quite impressive to see how they combined the two shows so seamlessly.

In the remaster there were some great shots, certainly lots of colour. The same could not be said for the DS9 episode, but I won't review that until later (much later!) Some of the new effects shots were great, particularly the Enterprise's arrival at K-7. Unfortunately we still haven't had an up close look at a Klingon Battlecruiser, despite at least two episodes showing them now. I'm not sure if we ever will see them or if they're holding off for the detailed shots in 'The Motion Picture'.

Overall Rating: 8/10

So our Trek continues with the remainder of the second season and the second half of the Original Series...

Trek Review: The Deadly Years & Obsession

2011-08-05T18:47:00.004+10:00

We're nearing the halfway point of Season Two and along with it the halfway point of the Original Series! This review looks at another two interesting episodes of the series and I have to say that even though I'm sure I've watched through the Original Series before, all of these episodes feel like new adventures as I hardly remember anything about them!

The Deadly Years

The Enterprise arrives at Gamma Hydra IV to find the scientific party assigned to the planet all dead or dying from old age - since none of the team were over 30, an investigation gets underway.

Soon enough, members of the landing party begin to show their own signs of rapid aging, affecting Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Spock and Galway, but not Chekov.

Scotty's signs are more obvious but Galway's aging increases the quickest and takes her life eventually before a solution can be found. Kirk's memory starts to lapse and his command effectiveness is called into question by Commodore Stocker, being transported to Starbase 10.

Eventually, Chekov is key to saving the aging crew members when McCoy and Spock find that adrenaline stopped the aging from ever taking effect after Chekov became extremely frightened when he discovered the first dead scientist on the planet surface.

This is a decent episode for its time. The aging effects on each character are quite well done, including some interesting parallels to future aged characters we'd end up seeing. Sure, Kirk doesn't quite look like the Deney Crane from Boston Legal, but the aged McCoy we would revisit in Star Trek: The Next Generation's pilot episode 'Encounter at Farpoint' isn't too dissimilar and the aging Spock doesn't look too different from the Spock we would end up encountering in The Next Generation either.

The Enterprise becomes involved in a Neutral Zone incident in this episode after Commodore Stocker takes command and orders the ship head straight for Starbase 10, a course that takes the ship through the Neutral Zone. You have to wonder at the dimwits that Starfleet pins Commodore badges on, but surely a course to Starbase 10 should be plotted around the Neutral Zone regardless of how impatient the Commodore was at getting to his new posting? Even Sulu should have known better? Anyway, the Enterprise is attacked by Romulan's as soon as it crosses the Neutral Zone border, interesting, because I thought no ships were allowed in there from either side. Commodore Stocker decides to sit in the Captain's chair and has no reaction while the ship is pounded relentlessly by Romulan forces. Why not retreat or at least return fire?! Nope, nothing. It takes Kirk, back in his prime to call a bluff with his famous 'Corbomite Maneuver' to get the ship out of trouble.

Notable for this episode is the blu-ray remaster. The effects shots of the Romulan conflict are quite well done with at least four different Romulan ships seen in the battle against the Enterprise and the 'warp out' shot is one of the best I've seen in the remasters so far showing the agility of the Constitution class hero ship we all know and love.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Obsession

Kirk and Spock lead a landing party on Argus X, surveying the planet for Tritanium. The landing party are soon set upon by a mysterious cloud that claims the lives of two security officers and leaves Ensign Rizzo badly injured. The dead officers having every red blood corpuscle drained from their bodies.

Kirk detects a similarity to a past situation he has faced and returns to the planet with Ensign Garrovick and a security team - all while the Enterprise is due to make an important rendezvous with the Yorktown to transfer urgently needed medical supplies.

On the planet surface, Ensign Garrovick is unable to stop the cloud before it kills the security team. He reports that he hesitated with fear to the senior staff, where Kirk relieves him of all his duties.

It is revealed that Ensign Garrovick is the son of Captain Garrovick, who Kirk served under aboard the starship Farragut. Captain Garrovick was killed along with 200 of the Farragut crew by a similar vampiric cloud. Kirk believes this is the same cloud. McCoy and Spock begin to notice Kirk becoming more obsessed with the creature and fear it is impeding his judgement, particularly with the rendezvous with the Yorktown being overlooked.

As the cloud leaves Argus X and launches into space, Kirk orders the Enterprise to pursue at Warp 8, however the ship is unable to continue for a long duration and forced to drop back. At this point, the cloud turns to attack the Enterprise. A phaser and torpedo attack have no effect and the cloud enters the ships ventilation system. Inside the ship, the cloud kills another crew member and attempts to kill Ensign Garrovick in his quarters, but Spock is able to intervene. The cloud leaves the ship and Kirk orders a pursuit course to the planet Tycho IV, where Kirk and the Farragut crew faced the cloud creature before.

There, Kirk and Garrovick are able to lure the creature with a sample of blood and detonate an anti-matter explosion that finally takes out the creature and leaves a rather large crater on the planet's surface.

Kirk's obsession with the creature puts him out of character from what we're used to as he relentlessly pursues it to atone for the guilt he feels for the deaths of the 200 or so lives lost on the Farragut. This episode must be up there for the record number of red-shirt deaths that occur!

Overall Rating: 7/10

Trek Review: Journey to Babel & Friday's Child

2011-08-03T20:14:00.004+10:00

Journey to Babel

The Enterprise has the task of transporting a number of diplomats to a conference on Babel. Among them, Andorians, Tellarites and Vulcans, including Spock's parents Sarek and Amanda.

En-route, one of the delegates is murdered, Sarek stands accused, but he is also suffering from a fatal disease where Spock is the only one who can help him. Add to that, the Enterprise comes under attack by an unknown alien ship.

This is an interesting episode as it shows the cultural diversity of the races making up the Federation in the 23rd century. We meet our first Andorians and Tellarites as well as a bunch of other aliens.

The episode introduces us to Sarek and Amanda, Spock's parents. Sarek appears cold and almost ignorant of Spock's existence aboard the ship, but this is probably to show the logical relationship between the two while Amanda's reactions are fairly more emotional in direct contrast.

An attempt on Kirk's life is made during the episode by a renegade Andorian communicating with an alien vessel shadowing the Enterprise's course to Babel. The Andorian is captured, but attempts to escape as the Enterprise is attacked. Eventually, after healing in sickbay, Kirk is able to outwit the alien commander and disables the other ship. The assassin dies soon after of his own accord.

Spock believes the attackers were actually Orion's who were out to disrupt the Babel conference to continue their own activities in the region, showing us more of the political climate going on at the time.

Overall Rating: 6/10

Friday's Child

Kirk and his landing party become involved in a struggle to secure mining rights on the planet Capella IV. This becomes more difficult when a Klingon commander, Kras appears and is also bargaining for similar rights with another powerful tribe of the planet's inhabitants.

A knee-jerk reaction from an inexperienced red-shirt when he draws his phaser on sight of the Klingon, works against Kirk's landing party and their chances of convincing the Capellan's the Federation is peaceful and trustworthy. However, in negotiations with the Capellan leader Akaar, McCoy and his experience with the Capellan people is able to provide them with the upper hand again.

A fight soon breaks out between the Capellan tribes and Akaar is killed and succeeded by Maab, who is in league with Kras. Kirk and crew are detained, but escape in the hopes of salvaging their situation and proving to the Capellans that Kras and Klingon Empire cannot be trusted.

This episode had promise but for me it became a little ridiculous. One look at the outfits of the Capellan inhabitants was enough. The storyline was somewhat predictable with the fighting between the Capellan tribes and the situation the Federation was put in. The reaction of Ensign Redshirt was extremely woeful and unacceptable for a trained Starfleet officer, particularly one assigned to the Enterprise!

The episode feels slow and drawn out, there is also a storyline of Akaar's widow, bearing a child and near the point of birth. She initially wishes to die after learning of Akaar's death, as is Capellan law. After being whisked away by Kirk and the crew she is influenced, by McCoy in particular as he works to save both mother and child.

In the end, it's an episode that covers topics of importance but I don't think it was executed as well as it could have been. Or maybe it was just the ridiculous Capellan outfits and the slow pace of the episode that ruined it for me?

Overall Rating: 5/10

Trek Review: Catspaw, I Mudd, Metamorphosis

2011-07-27T18:03:00.002+10:00

Catspaw

I always remembered this as one of my least favourite episodes from the Original Series. I'm not sure why. As it goes, on this re-run it wasn't too bad.

Another survey mission for the Enterprise and a landing party hasn't reported in. One of the members beams aboard and dies on the transporter pad. Sulu and Scotty, the other members are nowhere to be seen.

Kirk and co beam to the surface and are warned off by ghosts before they come across a huge castle. Eventually they are captured and awaken to find Scotty and Sulu, both mindless, under the control of Korob and Sylvia - who turn out to be aliens learning about life and new sensations in this galaxy. Korob is driven by his duty and mission while Sylvia is more infatuated with the new feelings she is experiencing and becoming more dangerous.

Eventually there is a showdown with a large black cat and Kirk ultimately wins, saves his ship and the crew but at the cost of Korob and Sylvia who perish in their true forms.

I learned from the Memory Alpha entry that this episode was designed almost as a holiday special for Halloween and it carries this theme reasonably well, while not overly scary by 21st century standards, all the themes are there.

There is some notable remaster work in this episode including the newly rendered castle and details of the planet.

Overall Rating: 6/10

I, Mudd

I was never a fan of Mudd, but they put him in another episode where it's more comedy and annoyance for the Enterprise crew.

This time, the ship is commandeered by a crewman, who turns out to be an android. He directs the ship to a remote planet where they find Mudd and thousands of other androids serving his every need. They brought the Enterprise to the planet to observe human behaviour and interactions outside of their lone sample.

The crew soon learn that Mudd made a deal with the androids to keep them on the planet in exchange for letting him leave with the ship and a crew of androids.

As things go, the androids eventually find that Mudd is corrupt and go back on the deal, putting Mudd in the same position as Kirk and the crew trying to get back to the ship.

It's another episode where the crew have to outsmart these computers and it results in some interesting and funny performances by all involved as they do their best to confuse and disable the androids. Eventually the crew are able to leave, but Mudd remains with over 500 androids recreated after his nagging wife to keep him planetside.

Regardless of the humour, I just can't like Mudd's character and it's an episode I could do without re-watching :P

Overall Rating: 4/10

Metamorphosis

I remembered the episode but forgot its name. It becomes quite important in the Star Trek timeline. Kirk, Spock and crew are transporting Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford to the Enterprise for medical treatment after contracting a virus. It's important she gets back to her negotiations in order to prevent a war on a nearby planet.

En-route, the shuttle is brought down on a planetoid and disabled. Here, the crew find a lone man, identifying himself as Cochrane, who is soon revealed as Zefram Cochrane - the inventor of warp drive.

An alien entity on the planet has rejuvenated Cochrane so he looks younger than before he went missing, over 150 years ago. He calls the alien the 'Companion' and it is the reason that the shuttlecraft was brought to the planet and also why it is disabled.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy attempt to overpower the Companion but it attacks them instead. They then configure a universal translator and try using diplomacy by talk ing with the entity and learning more about it, discovering that it loves Cochrane which initially disgusts the warp inventor.

A happy ending is reached when the Companion joins with and heals Nancy Hedford. Creating a female, human (and compatible) companion for Cochrane. The side-effect being that she is now stuck on the planet. Cochrane was initially looking forward to venturing into the stars again with Kirk, but after the sacrifice the Companion has made and everything else she has done for him, he decides to stay with her and bids the crew farewell.

An interesting episode for the historical value that we get to meet Zefram Cochrane. Of course he resurfaces in the Trek timeline some time later. The remastered episode features fantastic colours and sharpness, including the green-ness of Nancy's dress and coat.

The episode also shows Kirk's 'attack first, try diplomacy later' maneuver against the Companion.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Sci-Fi Review: Outcasts

2011-07-27T06:48:00.001+10:00

While we have been watching through sci-fi of old, most notably Star Trek The Original Series and I have been watching through episodes of Space: Above and Beyond, a recent new sci-fi show caught my attention...

Something about its promotion on local station ABC drew me to at least give it a look. Outcasts aired on 28 May 2011 in Australia. Little did I know that it had already been cancelled in the UK by this time! Nevermind though, that meant an 8 part series I could watch and knew there would be some sort of ending, maybe...

It's a series based on another planet named Carpathia in the year 2060. It was colonised 10 years prior to the series start by evacuees from Earth fleeing a nuclear holocaust. The main city is named Forthaven where most of the inhabitants live.

The main character focus revolves around Richard Tate who is the President, Stella Isen who is the head of Protection and Security (PAS) and PAS Officers Cass and Fleur. Others become more central as the story progresses.

In the first episode a transporter from Earth arrives and attempts the difficult landing at Carpathia. She breaks up but there are some survivors who are inducted into the Forthaven community. Among them, Julius Berger who immediately puts his own plans into action.

As the story develops we learn more of the XP's (expeditionary's) and the AC's (advanced cultivars). The XP's go in search of resources and bring them back for study or use at Forthaven while the AC's were designed and created to exist in harsh conditions for long periods of time. We soon learn that the AC's were blamed for a virus outbreak that claimed the lives of many children in the early years of establishing Forthaven and Tate was involved in having them removed and ultimately banished.

Meanwhile, Stella's daughter attempts to reconnect with her mother after arriving aboard the transporter from Earth and Julius wants to regain the power he had back home by working his way into the political world of Forthaven, taking aim for Tate, Cass and Fleur throughout different episodes.

Amongst all this we learn of another alien presence on the planet and that there were others on the planet at one point when remains and fossils begin to show up.

The show takes time to build with hour long, uninterrupted episodes but a lot of the story gets covered. It seems unfortunate that the reception wasn't so welcoming for Outcasts as many reviews claimed it was boring and drawn out.

By the end of the series we discover another transporter has made it to Carpathia with people sympathetic to Berger aboard. We don't know what happens when it arrives at Forthaven as that is where the show ultimately ends while we find out some interesting information about one of the main characters and a shake-up occurs when Tate stands down as President.

Like a lot of sci-fi shows before it, Outcasts never reached its potential but it was interesting and well put together with some decent quality in its production. It was simple, not over-the-top and remained about the characters while bringing out issues of morality, equality and religion into this new world that is trying not to repeat the mistakes of Earth. It is now limited to an eight episode run and will be released on DVD and Blu-ray, so if anyone's interested, give it a look. At least you know it's a short series.

More information from Outcasts' Wikipedia entry and the BBC's Official Outcasts page.

With Outcasts finished I'm back to watching the second half of the series Space: Above and Beyond and still hoping to get the series Dark Skies up and running too...

Trek Review: The Apple & The Doomsday Machine

2011-07-21T22:46:00.003+10:00

The Apple

The Enterprise arrives at a world described as paradise for survey. On beaming to the surface however, Kirk's landing party come across deadly plants that shoot poisonous spores and explosive rocks.

In orbit, the Enterprise falls victim to an unusual electromagnetic force emanating from the planet. This eventually jeopardises the ship.

The landing party continue towards a village of the planet's inhabitants but unfortunately lose more of their party in the process. Kirk and Spock discover they are being followed and trap their spy who takes them to the village, introduces his people and Vaal, a large serpent like cave that the inhabitants worship and care for.

Vaal is the source of all the problems Kirk and his crew are facing and a plan is put into action to deprive it of its power and free themselves and the enslaved inhabitants in the process.

This episode is a great example of Kirk breaking the Prime Directive, though most of it seems to be from McCoy's disgust at how the people live. They do not reproduce as they do not die. Vaal takes care of everything as long as it remains 'fed'.

The remaster brings out a lot of the vibrant colours used in this episode from the trees against the red dirt to the clouds and storms generating by Vaal and more. We lose at least three red shirts in this episode as well. Kirk feeling the impact of each as the episode goes on, particularly noting he knew the father of one crew member who helped Kirk get into the academy. I thought the episode might end with Kirk outsmarting the computer or whatever Vaal was, but instead the Enterprise successfully drains Vaal long enough to shut him down and allow the planet inhabitants to fend for themselves - not that they asked for it, Kirk and co simply assumed it would be better for them that way!

I remember reading that this episode was originally intended to feature the Enterprise separating the saucer section. I wondered how or why this would happen, but Kirk alludes to it in a communication with Scotty when the ship is losing power and being pulled towards the planet by Vaal's interference. In any case, we never see a Constitution class ship separate, so we'll just have to leave that one for the fan-fiction writers out there!

Overall this wasn't a bad episode, I'm rating it 6/10.

The Doomsday Machine

This episode remains one of my favourites and most memorable from the Original Series, though I'll admit there were still parts of the episode I had forgotten about.

The Enterprise is exploring a region of space where all the planets have been destroyed. They come across their sistership, the Constellation adrift and badly damaged. Her commanding officer, Commodore Decker is found aboard, but none of the crew.

Decker tells of a terrible weapon that attacked the planets in the area and his ship. He beamed his crew to a planet for them to be safe, but the machine destroyed them all.

Kirk and Scott work to prepare the Constellation to be towed back to base while Decker is put under McCoy's care aboard the Enterprise. Soon enough, the 'planet killer' appears and attacks the Enterprise. With damage to communications and transporters, Kirk and Scott are stranded on the stricken Constellation. Spock maneuvers the Enterprise to safe distance but is soon overruled when Decker comes to the bridge and uses his rank to take command.

The Enterprise is taken into battle against the Planet Killer but deals no damage while taking plenty of its own. Kirk can only watch from a repaired viewscreen as his ship takes on the huge machine. Once Kirk finally gets through to the Enterprise and calls off the attacks, Decker sneaks himself into a shuttle and rams it into the Planet Killers maw, sacrificing himself but having no effect.

Eventually, Kirk rigs the Constellation to explode in the maw of the Planet Killer, taking the machine down with a much larger explosion before it is able to attack more populated systems of the Federation.

I think I like this episode for the space action that takes place and it's the first time we get to see another Constitution class starship up close, even if it is a bit wrecked. In remastered form, this episode shines with the newly ruined Constellation adrift in space with debris and rocks bouncing off her hull. The new Planet Killer and weapon effects are also well done.

Notably, Uhura wasn't in this episode, instead they had another female communications officer, Lt Palmer.

Enjoyable with suspense, danger and battles. The nail-biting scene where the Constellation rams the Planet Killer and Kirk awaiting his beamout was very well done for the time I imagine!

Overall Rating: 8/10

Falsely Accused - A Tale of a Copyright Infringement Claim on YouTube

2011-07-14T19:07:00.007+10:00

As most of you might know, I have a YouTube channel dedicated to my aviation antics called AbraxasVideo. Back in January the channel celebrated one year online with 18 videos uploaded. By the end of May, the channel was just over 40 videos strong.

In late May I was uploading videos from a 5 part series of footage I had filmed on 14 March 2008. The first three parts had gone online without issue, but part 4 encountered problems within hours of being put online. A 'content author' on YouTube, Expert Village had the video disabled because they felt they owned the 'Audiovisual content' of the video. I was baffled, but I pulled the video down and re-edited it. The newer version of Part 4 went through okay (see below):

27th May 2011 I uploaded Part 5, the finale and much anticipated video of the series as it has (what I thought was) some of the best footage. No sooner was it online and after a mere 29 views, the video was pulled again. YouTube allow you to counter-claim when a video has been disabled by submitting a good-faith email stating you feel the video has been identified incorrectly or by mistake. I did this in both cases which re-enables the video, until the complaining entity shuts the door again, which is what happened to me.

My account was now in bad standing regarding copyright as it had two strikes against it. I researched Expert Village, on YouTube they run a channel of tutorial/how-to videos and through a Google search I was redirected to the eHow website. I posted a thread on YouTube's help forum which explained the situation and followed that up with attempts to communicate with ExpertVillage via their YouTube channel and following the help links provided on the eHow website.

After a few weeks there was no reply from the YouTube channel and the eHow website help was completely unhelpful with this response:

"Hi,

Thank you for your inquiry. However, our representatives can only answer questions pertaining to the eHow website. We apologize we couldn't help you out today.

Best,
eHow Team
www.eHow.com"

No suggested course of action or where I might be able to proceed to. In the end, I followed the advice of YouTube help forum top contributor 'rewboss' who suggested I go through the legal forms YouTube provides to counter-claim against a copyright infringement. This means submitting my personal information to the claimant, hoping they see reason and realise the mistakes they've made. If not, there is the real threat of being sued and taken to court - at least that's what they warn you before you submit the form!

I submitted the form on 1st June 2011 and waited, watching the days and weeks go by. It was exactly 4 weeks later that I received an email from YouTube's Copyright area that they had received the counter-claim and would forward it to the claimant, Expert Village with an expected response within 10-14 working days. The favourable outcome being that Expert Village either withdraw their claim or don't reply to the counter-claim at all, in which case YouTube (at their discretion) can reinstate the videos and remove any penalties against an account. An unfavourable outcome I guess would have involved the claimant sticking to their guns about the alleged infringement.

Thankfully, on 13th July 2011 I received an email from YouTube:

"Hi there,

In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we've completed processing your counter-notification regarding your video:

...

This content has been restored and your account will not be penalized.
Regards,

The YouTube Team"

...and that was it. While I didn't expect an apology, there's no word from the claimant. I'm guessing they didn't reply at all since their channel seems to be defunct these days. Worrying though is that there's nothing to stop this from happening again.

I checked with other aviation video contributors on YouTube and none of them had gone through what I had experienced. I checked my work but what was I looking for? The footage was from my own video camera, filmed in a public place. I’m pretty sure Expert Village had no jurisdiction over the planes, airlines, liveries, engine sounds and air-traffic control audio used in my videos. I even checked the Sydney Airport site for their copyright policy regarding their corporate logo which I have been using in the opening titles for my videos shot there.

Thankfully the outcome was favourable and Abraxas Video is able to continue showcasing aviation related videos on YouTube. Had this gone badly I’m not sure what action I would have taken. Start up a new YouTube channel? Go to a different video website (and lose the exposure YouTube offers)? Probably neither. I probably would have simply stopped sharing my footage :(

The main reason for my whinge/rant here is that I hadn’t done anything wrong or uploaded any infringing footage yet it was a case of guilty until proven innocent. Of course I’m aware that YouTube is free to use and there are probably many users who abuse copyright with the videos they throw up there but I really wish the process could have been easier and less daunting. How an entity that has nothing to do with aviation can disable two of my videos just because they say my videos infringe their copyright is beyond me. Then for the resolution process to take more than 6 weeks!? At least fighting the claim was worth it and thankfully I'm not trying to run a business using YouTube's services.

So I just had to get this whole ordeal off my chest!

You can watch the 'infringing' video here:

In the time away from uploading aviation videos to YouTube I've continued compiling footage and am looking forward to resuming uploads from next week. All of this until the next entity decides there's been some sort of infringement...

Thanks for reading. Maybe this post will be helpful for anyone who ends up in the same position.

A Year At Home

2011-07-13T19:13:00.002+10:00

On 24 June 2011, Eleonor and I celebrated (aside from several birthdays) a year's ownership of our wonderful home. It's unbelievable that it's been a year already since we received the keys and were able to start moving in.

In that year the house has been furnished with partial hand-me-down furniture including a sofa set, my old bed and some desks to newly purchased items like our new chaise lounge, entertainment unit, queen bed and appliances. We even managed to place a few glass display cabinets around and some bookshelves in the study.

Outside has taken a bit longer, but with the enthusiastic, generous and very much appreciated help of Eleonor's father we've got the side paths covered and the backyard will be along soon. At least the messed up back 'area' has been flattened out a bit, a retaining wall has been placed along the rear fence and Eleonor's doves were moved in.

We were able to hold a family housewarming late last year but we hope that with a completed backyard we'll be able to open up the entertainment area, fire up a (yet to be acquired) barbecue and have an all-inclusive housewarming/engagement party with our family and friends before the end of the year :)

A completed backyard would mean we could also start looking for a dog to inhabit (and hopefully not dig up) the area!

We're getting there...

Trek Review: The Changeling & Mirror, Mirror

2011-07-06T22:46:00.004+10:00

The Changeling

The Enterprise encounters a powerful probe that is on a quest of bringing its version of perfection to the universe. After a powerful and apparently damaging attack on the Enterprise, Kirk is able to communicate and reason with the probe and beam it aboard.

The probe identifies itself as Nomad and begins examining the crew, believing that Kirk is its creator (confused for Roykirk). Nomad begins to prove more and more a threat after it wipes Uhura's memory clean and kills Scotty (only to revive him later).

Ultimately, Kirk is able to outwit the computer probe and have it destroyed before it would do the same to the Enterprise and her crew.

This is a good episode, a typical one for Star Trek and the uncredited inspiration for the first movie, Star Trek The Motion Picture. It is interesting that Nomad is shown as all powerful and destructive in the beginning and yet it comes aboard the Enterprise and interacts with the crew once it mistakes Kirk for its creator and shows less destructive intent once aboard. Kirk's way of confusing (and destroying) Nomad is hilarious and witty in typical Kirk fashion.

Interestingly, Uhura is able to rebuild her memories rather quickly after her encounter with Nomad, and although Scotty wears a red shirt most of the time, they couldn't exactly kill him off, so Nomad is able to repair him - how? We don't know and nor should we care!

Overall Rating: 6/10

Mirror, Mirror

After negotiating with the rulers of the Halkan homeworld for access to dilithium Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Scotty beam up to the Enterprise, but something goes wrong with the transporter and they end up in familiar and yet unfamiliar surroundings.

They have swapped with counterparts from a mirror, parallel universe. In this other universe, the Federation is much more brutal and savage. After negotiations don't work out with the Halkans, the Enterprise is ordered to make an example of the inhabitants by destroying their major cities. Kirk and the landing party are able to withhold participating in these barbaric acts long enough to return to their universe, with some help from mirror Spock.

This is a great episode to show the Federation if it had developed with different views and ideas. We will eventually learn more about this universe from episodes of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise, but for what we learn from this one it seems there's a fair bit of Nazi influence in the Terran Empire and promotion comes through assassination and networking with the right people to get you far enough up the chain of command.

Chekov and Sulu make attempts to take the captaincy from Kirk while Spock, even though he is still influenced by the universe in which he exists, remains logical and not seeking command of the Enterprise, although he notes he would take the role if Kirk should die. Spock remains Kirk's 'friend' even in these different circumstances. Spock sports a goatie so we could all tell he was the 'evil' counterpart of our familiar Vulcan science officer.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Trek Review: Amok Time & Who Mourns for Adonais?

2011-06-27T23:04:00.006+10:00

The second season of Star Trek begins! I didn't expect 'Amok Time' to be the first episode we'd come across but here we are...

Amok Time

This is the first episode of the second season, it's the episode we learn more about Vulcans and their way of life, how they chose a mate and the ceremonies involved around that. It's the first time we get to see Chekov and it's the first episode to feature that iconic 'fight music'!

Spock begins behaving differently, borderline violently and pleads with Kirk to let him go back to Vulcan. The Enterprise is already engaged in a diplomatic mission to Altair VI which makes granting Spock's request difficult.

Nevertheless, Kirk opts to help out his friend and McCoy finds that if Spock doesn't return to Vulcan, he will die. Spock reveals he is to marry T'Pring upon arrival at Vulcan, but she has other ideas. Setting up a challenge between Spock and Kirk and putting their lives on the line...

A great episode where we learn much more and see so much more of Vulcan, particularly in the remaster. Some of the new scenes inserted were fantastic. I appreciated the new shots of the Enterprise but the new Vulcan landscape scenes were amazingly well done as well.

The friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy has settled by this episode and we get our first sighting of Chekov who will become a regular part of the crew (I imagine) from here. Hopefully his wig doesn't hang around with him though!

While Eleonor didn't like 'angry Spock' so much, it was still quite funny to see him bash his computer monitor in!

Overall Rating: 8/10

Who Mourns for Adonais?

I looked at this episode as one that I wouldn't enjoy. It would be a throwaway, from the moment a giant hand is coming at the Enterprise from a planet and holding it in place to seeing a guy in robes claiming to be Apollo I'd already made my mind up about this episode.

But, it did manage to surprise me, if only a little bit.

So, Apollo's been waiting on this planet while his companions like Aphrodite, Hermes etc have all gone beyond. He knew his 'children' would find him and now he wants to enslave, I mean, have them live on this planet with him. He'll have them dismantle the Enterprise so they can live in paradise and worship him. He even takes a liking to Lt. Carolyn Palamas, much to Scotty's annoyance. In the end, Palamas is crucial in weakening Apollo and allowing Kirk and the landing party to work with Spock and Sulu on the Enterprise to get everyone free.

There are several different stories taking place at the same time. Aboard the Enterprise, Spock, Sulu and the crew are attempting to break free of the giant hand holding them in place and to get in contact with Kirk and the landing party. On the planet surface, Kirk and the landing party are confronted with Apollo and attempting to figure out his power source while trying to communicate with the Enterprise. The key is Lt Palamas who Apollo falls in love with and promises to make her his queen. Kirk is able to remind Palamas of her duty to Starfleet and to her credit she does that job well, saving the crew.

In this episode we see Scotty lose his temper on more than one occasion, Chekov's wig returns and the Enterprise has phaser power reserves that would make most 24th century Starfleet vessels envious in the attack on Apollo's power source!

Overall Rating: 6/10

Trek Review: Star Trek The Original Series, Season 1

2011-06-22T23:14:00.003+10:00

I figured I'd wrap up Season One with an overall review. The first season of any show is usually a difficult one to rate as it usually involves character development and stories to give some background to the people we're following around. The Original Series is no different and is more affected by the out-of-ordering of the episodes early on.

As I mentioned in the review for the episode, Where No Man Has Gone Before has always been regarded by me as the pilot episode, but with the remastered blu-ray collection we started with The Man Trap instead. The former still makes the better pilot in my opinion, a shame they decided to use production sequencing in this set and Where No Man Has Gone Before actually becomes the third episode of the series/season.

Episodes I have fond memories of, including Where No Man Has Gone Before, The Corbomite Maneuver, Tomorrow is Yesterday, Balance of Terror and Space Seed all had high expectations for the re-run in blu-ray, but most of them ultimately played out differently or not as good as I remembered for one reason or another. The Corbomite Maneuver and Balance of Terror played out closely enough to my recollection while Space Seed seemed disappointing considering the importance this episode has for the future of Star Trek. Tomorrow is Yesterday played out differently, but was still a good episode, thanks in part to the updated effects.

So, with these recent reviews and from the ratings I've applied to each episode, those that scored highest were in fact The City on the Edge of Forever, scoring 9 out of 10, followed by three episodes with a rating of 8; The Enemy Within, Tomorrow is Yesterday and Court Martial.

The episodes I rated least were What Are Little Girls Made Of?, Miri, Dagger of the Mind, Return of the Archons and The Alternative Factor, all scoring 5 out of 10.

From Eleonor's own comments, I think the episodes that stood out to her the most included Where No Man Has Gone Before, for the story and some of the set designs, This Side of Paradise, for the 'emotional and playful' Spock and The City on the Edge of Forever for its storyline.

The blu-ray set itself is worth full marks. The transfer is great with both picture and sound of excellent quality. The remastered scenes are all flawless and hardly detract from the episodes themselves. There is the option to playback the original episodes with the original effects but we never used this option, instead choosing to run in fully remastered mode :)

Scattered throughout the discs are a number of special featurettes ranging from interviews with cast members about key Star Trek issues and stories to William Shatners love of horses and even some 'easter eggs'.

We're now looking forward to continuing the mission and viewing Season Two - I'll keep my expectations at more reasonable levels as iconic and memorable episodes such as Mirror Mirror, The Doomsday Machine and The Ultimate Computer lie ahead...

Trek Review: The City on the Edge of Forever & Operation -- Annihilate!

2011-06-18T15:17:00.005+10:00

In about 6 months we've come to the end of the first season of the Original Series and arrived at probably the most popular episode in all of Star Trek...

The City on the Edge of Forever

The most popular, favourite and remembered episode of The Original Series. The Enterprise is monitoring some violent distortions in orbit of an uncharted planet. Sulu becomes injured and treated by McCoy, who becomes accidentally injected with an overdose of the medication used on Sulu. This sends him mad and he beams down to the planet below.

Searching for him, Kirk and Spock find the Guardian of Forever, a portal to any point in history. McCoy dives through the portal and soon enough the landing party find out that history has been altered as the Enterprise has disappeared from orbit.

Kirk and Spock step through in an attempt to find McCoy and correct history. They meet Edith Keeler, a social worker in Earth's 1930's. Spock discovers that she is the focal point of the distortion in the timeline and realise that she must die for their future to remain intact. They are ultimately successful and even save the Doctor, but not before Kirk falls in love with Edith.

I watched this episode with lower expectations than previous episodes I'd had fond memories of. The episode still delivered. The story is simple, there's no major conflicts, space battles or villains but it is well told. A time travel story where our heroes must save their future, a love story between Kirk and Keeler and a story of sacrifice.

The Guardian was rarely seen again through Star Trek history, even though the Guardian it(him?)self suggested that many more trips were possible. It's not clear if the planet was quarantined or what action would be taken after its discovery, considering the dangers involved in travelling through time.

As is a common theme now, the remastered blu-ray of this episode was exceptional!

Overall Rating: 9/10

Operation -- Annihilate!

The Enterprise is investigating a pattern of mass-insanity spreading through their part of the galaxy and are approaching the planet Deneva. A small ship leaving the planet heads directly for the Sun and breaks up, killing the occupant.

On the planet surface, the crew comes across a group of men displaying aggressive tendencies but calling out that they do not want to hurt them. The landing party also discover Kirk's brother, Sam, dead, his wife and his son are beamed to the ship.

The Denevan population has become infected by a single-celled organism, or a neural paraside that is causing the colonists insanity. Spock is attacked by one and attempts to take control of the Enterprise after being beamed to Sickbay. Spock retrieves a parasite for study from the planet's surface in the hopes they can find a way to stop their spread. Eventually it is found that a certain spectrum of light will kill the parasites and leave the million inhabitants of Deneva unharmed.

This episode is one of the few I have not seen before. Not that it mattered with many 'familiar' episodes of this season being more unfamiliar to me than I thought. Here we learn of Jim's brother, Sam, although we never really see or interact with him as he is dead on arrival. The neural parasites, while crude and simple in their design are well animated to show they are living creatures. This probably was quite a scary episode at the time of its release.

The remastered version of this episode shows the Enterprise deploying a network of satellites from a cargo area at the bottom of the engineering hull. The scene was an added feature for the remaster that wasn't seen in the original.

I think there was a scene in this episode that showed Kirk issue an order to Sulu, and in a quick scene change to the helm panel, the officer sitting in Sulu's position was wearing a red shirt. I also thought it interesting that each time Kirk consulted Scotty on the bridge, Scotty was standing at the back near the turbolift door, would look forward (not really at anything in particular) and then provide a report - he didn't even touch or do anything?! :)

Overall Rating: 7/10

Of course this was also the final episode of the first season. By this point, the crew have come together as a family and everyone (except the notably absent Chekov) has taken to their positions. Season Two awaits, with more adventures and more of the galaxy to explore...

Trek Review: Errand of Mercy & The Alternative Factor

2011-06-11T10:53:00.005+10:00

I'll start with a quick divergence from the Trek Reviews. I know that some people think I'm a pretty hardcore Trekker and I'd probably agree, but even I have my limits in Trekkiness. On Twitter, there's a great many different people you can follow that either emulate a character from Trek or provide info, whatever. One such is @TrekTrivia, it doesn't take much to work out what this one is all about.

Twice a week they run Trek related Trivia for Twitter followers to partake in. There's no prizes, but it's kinda fun. Until someone takes it a bit too seriously, which has happened to me on two occasions now from the same follower. I dunno, just feels like we're back in primary school when a user is tweeting that the only reason I won a round was because no one else was playing. All I can really say to them is 'boohoo', for the most-part TrekTrivia is run to cater for the European/North American timezones, so the fact I get to join in at all is already worth noting and there's nothing up for grabs, so does it matter who wins or not? I always figured it was just about participating and having fun. Meh...

Errand of Mercy

The Enterprise is sent to Organia to prepare it's people for a likely Klingon invasion. Oh, I should rejoice, KLINGONS!!! Kirk's greatest adversary finally make it onscreen in this episode!

Negotiations between the Klingons and the Federation haven't gone well and it becomes important to secure Organia for the conflict ahead. An attack by a Klingon ship on the Enterprise followed by an alert from Starfleet confirms that the two parties are now at war.

The Organians refuse help, saying it's not needed. Kirk and Spock are confused and end up stuck on the planet as a Klingon fleet arrives and occupational forces beam down. The Enterprise flees to round up Federation forces on Kirk's orders.

Kirk and Spock work to sabotage the Klingons but are captured (after being turned in by Ayelbourne, the head of the Organian council). He eventually frees them from their cell, and Kor, leading the Klingon forces has 200 Organian's killed and promises 200 more if Kirk and Spock aren't returned.

Eventually we find that the Organian's are in fact beings of a much higher evolution and that no one was hurt, they were projections. The Organian's ultimately intervene and stop both the Federation and Klingon forces from coming together in battle and neither side is able to take claim to the planet.

My observations would mostly relate to the Klingons in this episode. Obviously they don't look anything like what we'll come to expect from TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT but this is how they looked. They also behave slightly differently, not much about honour and battle in how they present themselves, obviously this must be worked into their culture as time goes on.

This episode does show their militaristic nature though and beaming down to a planet and taking control with little initial resistance proves easy, but with one hiccup (Kirk and Spock escaping), Kor shows how ruthless the Klingons can be by executing 200 people on a whim.

It will be interesting to observe the Klingons in future episodes and see how they develop into Kirk's number one enemy and possibly more into the warrior race that are so renowned by the 24th century.

One thing of note though is that Ayelbourne foretells that both the Federation and the Klingons will one day become friends and work together and how much truth there is in those words!

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Alternative Factor

About to complete a survey of an uncharted planet, the Enterprise and her crew experience a 'blink' where the universe is on the verge of non-existence. A man appears on the planet below where before there was no life.

The landing party find Lazarus, who claims he is pursuing a 'thing', a monster who destroyed his civilisation. There is no other life on the planet, so Lazarus is accused of lying.

In the meantime, more 'blinking' occurs and it soon becomes apparent that Lazarus is involved in some ways and McCoy finds it hard to explain how at one moment he can have a bandage on his head and the next, it's no longer there.

It turns out that there are two Lazarus', one from our universe and another from a parallel universe. In the 'blinking', the two meet in a type of corridor that connects the two universes. Kirk learns the truth when he accidentally transports into the parallel universe instead of Lazarus, who has gone insane. Kirk meets the parallel Lazarus, who is prepared to seal himself and his counterpart in the corridor forever to save both universes from destruction.

The episode is okay, but gets a bit confusing and repetitive with the 'swirling' effect used to show Lazarus entering the corridor and fighting with his counterpart. It's only towards the end of the episode that it truly starts to make sense and we can understand what is happening in these scenes. The idea of the episode is an interesting one though and parallel universes are visited again and again throughout the rest of Star Trek - just executed a little differently each time.

Overall Rating: 5/10

Only two more episodes await for the first season - coming soon!

Trek Review: This Side of Paradise & The Devil in the Dark

2011-06-06T22:15:00.000+10:00

This Side of Paradise

The Enterprise arrives at Omicron Ceti III to survey the planet's destruction under a bombardment of deadly berthold rays. Beaming down, they find colonists unexpectedly alive and well.

The crew begin acting strangely and it's found that some plants are responsible. They travelled through space until the reached the planet and found the colonists. Depositing their spores into a human host, they provide the hosts with perfect health with no wants or needs.

Kirk finds out that through anger, a host can break free of the spores and works on getting his crew back.

This is a unique episode in that we get to see Spock free of his controlled Vulcan logic. He meets with an old friend, Leila and once infected by the spores they spend time together with Spock sharing some fun and out of character moments.

Kirk is the last of the crew to be affected and the first to figure out how to break the spores' hold on their hosts. The episode works well in that the situation becomes more and more hopeless as it progresses, to the point where Kirk is infected as well. But a solution is found and things are returned to normal in the end.

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Devil in the Dark

A mysterious creature has been killing miners on the planet Janus VI. The Enterprise and her crew arrive to investigate.

They find a creature unlike anything they've previously encountered which was let loose once the miners drilled deeper into the planet for more resources. Kirk and Spock are able to come to an understanding with the creature and its species in the process.

One of few recent episodes that I remember, I thought it came much earlier in the series. This episode introduces the Horta, basically a rug, but supposed to be a silicon based lifeform capable of moving through rocks as we move through air. I think this was one of the first times we see the Vulcan mind-meld (the joining of two minds) where Spock is able to understand the Horta.

This is quite a simple episode but it's one that really embodies the idea of Star Trek and the mission of the Enterprise and her crew. The Horta is definitely a 'strange, new life form' and a mutual agreement with the miners and the Horta reached at the end shows the Federation idea of living and working together for a common goal.

There were a number of new special effects shots in this episode and they worked really well, from the new scene of the Horta tunneling through a wall to some of the new passes by the Enterprise it was all seamlessly delivered.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Sci-Fi Review: Thunderbirds (2004)

2011-06-05T10:49:00.003+10:00

After watching through the Thunderbirds series on blu-ray, we are left with three movies to finish up the saga completely. Two of them are the familiar marionette versions and the most recent is a live action version that was released in 2004.

I had seen the live action movie once before and because of the negative review I posted back then, I thought it might be a good idea to watch it first out of the three remaining features so we can end on a high note. Yet still, I thought perhaps my initial review might turn out to be a bit harsh and much like some of the episodes of Star Trek The Original Series, maybe a re-watch could change that opinion.

I was wrong...

I think it might be best to start with what they did right with this movie as it will take less time!

Tracy Island and the Thunderbird machines are modernised and a decent enough representation from the original series. Thunderbirds 1 and 3 have the most common resemblance to their 1960's counterparts, with TB1 featuring adjustable jet nozzles (like a Harrier jumpjet) for it's vertical take-off and landing purposes.

Thunderbird 2 resembles the original enough, but has a different, much wider, frog-like shape, more streamlined engine 'pods' down the side but still features the pod carrying abilities, twin-boom tail and forward swept wings. My nitpick would be that it uses a 'crawler' to head out to its launch runway instead of its own wheels and the wings look way too short and therefore, way more unable to actually keep the machine in the air!

Thunderbird 4 is much smaller, for two people only who lie down to control it, while Thunderbird 5 looks more like a space satellite, but retains its circular appearance.

Ben Kingsley plays a decent 'Hood' in that he looks the part, but that's about it. Casting for Lady Penelope and Parker isn't bad and I dare say I could have warmed up to the other casting choices if it weren't for how horrible this story played out in the end.

Ben Kingsley plays a more sinister Hood.

So... the rest.

Thunderbirds was never really about one person in particular, it was always about the team, yet the movie has decided to focus on Alan Tracy - who isn't even the astronaut of Thunderbird 3. He's going through school with Fermat. Who's Fermat? We find out he's Brains' son. Yes, Brains has a son. Alan's having trouble in school and at the end of term gets picked up by Lady Penelope (often referred to as Lady P in the movie) for a lift home. Parker and Penelope offering a taxi service? Very nice of them.

The pink 6-wheeler of choice isn't a Rolls Royce but in fact a hideously madeover Ford Thunderbird. I'm not kidding or being harsh here, it's a horrible looking car and I'm a Ford fan. Based on their concept car from the time, they added the extra axle, tapered off the rear and placed a glass bubble on top. The producers couldn't come to an agreement with BMW (owners of Rolls Royce) to provide a car for the movie, so Ford came to the rescue and I guess a Thunderbird is a fitting replacement... or is it?

See? I wasn't kidding!

But there's more, FAB1 can FLY. A point they keep showing throughout and later on we see it has hydrofoil capabilities as well - we kinda knew that from the series... but I just don't like this FAB1 at all... lets move along...

Parker & Lady Penelope with the Ford FAB1

The Hood stages a fake emergency on an oil platform that Thunderbird 1 and 2 are able to tend to. On their return journey, one of the rescued workers fires a tracking 'goo' onto TB1 which allows the Hood to trace them back to Tracy Island. He launches an attack by firing a missile at Thunderbird 5... how he knew TB5's location I'm not sure.

TB5 sends a distress call to Tracy Island and Jeff, Scott, Virgil and Gordon all head off in TB3 to assist John in the space station... yep, all of them. Jeff never went on a mission in the series, he always coordinated things from the island while the boys took care of things, but he leaves the island in the hands of Brains, Kyrano, the maid, Alan, Fermat and Tin-Tin.

Alan, Fermat and Tin-Tin work to save everyone, outwitting the Hood and his goons and saving TB5 but not before the Hood takes TB2 and the Mole to London to drill into and rob the Bank of England.

Tin-Tin, Alan & Fermat work to send a signal to Thunderbird 5.

All the Thunderbirds descend on London to stop the Hood's plans but first they have to rescue some passengers on a CGI monorail that was conveniently placed across the River Thames for the purpose of this movie. There's a final showdown in a bank vault before everything's hunky dory once more.

The Hood takes Thunderbird 2 through Tower Bridge approaching London

So, after all that you might be wondering what I didn't like about the film?

Throughout the film everyone, including the Tracy's themselves refer to them as 'The Thunderbirds'. All through the series, they were always International Rescue, with the 5 machines used in missions referred to as Thunderbirds. It almost seemed pointless to have International Rescue and IR badges in the movie because the term was never used. Oh, and W.T.F. is "Thunderize"?! Alan Tracy says this just as he hits a button to open a hole in Thunderbird 1's silo, it sounds lame. I wanted to find a video clip of that moment but it seems no one on YouTube wanted to torture us with it either.

Alan, Fermat and Tin-Tin save the day. Ultimately, the producers made this a childrens movie (inspired by Spy Kids?) instead of one that would and could be appreciated by long time fans of the original. The machines look great on the outside but inside they look like something from a kids after school game show, everything has a plastic look about it and are way too colourful to be taken seriously.

Jeff and whoever those two are getting comfortable in TB3's plastic cockpit.

Adding to this, there are some fight scenes in the film, but all of these are trivialised by poor choreography of Lady Penelope doing cartwheels all over the place, the Goons falling over each other more times than we can count and horrid sound effects to emphasise things like 'The Parker Haymaker'.

The Tracy's themselves are trivialised with the constant focus on Alan, Fermat and Tin-Tin. I couldn't point out Scott, John, Virgil or Gordon in the movie because they're sent off to pretty much die in TB5 for most of the film. Bill Paxton might've made a decent Jeff Tracy, but he does come across a little differently from the character established in the series.

The Tracy's about to launch.

Character traits aren't always spot-on, but most notably, Brains and Fermat both share their stuttering speech impediment, to the point of annoyance. In the series, it was kinda cute and almost unnoticeable, in the movie, it's just annoying. The producers also decided to give Brains a last name, Hackenbacker. Sure, this is from the series, but it was only ever used as an alias.

Brains has an over-exaggerated stutter and a last name.

Oh, and product placement! I mentioned before that I'm a fan of Ford, don't get me wrong, but when every car featured in the film is a Ford and proudly displaying the blue oval, it gets a bit much. We know FAB1 was a Ford Thunderbird, but we find out Lady Penelope has a collection of at least three pink Ford's at her manor, then the Goons use an ATV which is a Ford and in one of the last scenes where the crooks are apprehended, there are at least three Ford Police cars on the scene!

Lady Penelope has a collection of pink Fords.

What could have saved this film? A little bit of seriousness might have been a good start. I'm not sure if they just had a horrid script to start with or if Jonathan Frakes might be to blame as director of the project. But Frakes can direct, after successful outings in the Star Trek franchise with First Contact (1996) and Insurrection (1998) what went wrong?

Gerry Anderson has distanced himself from the film as much as possible, partly by his own doing, but he was eventually dropped from the consultation team when this movie was being put together as the studio figured they had enough people working on it. In a radio podcast I remember Gerry Anderson being asked if he was 'consulted' about the movie, Gerry's answer was 'was I insulted?' with a laugh of agreement.

In review of the film, Anderson said "It was disgraceful that such a huge amount of money was spent with people who had no idea what Thunderbirds was about and what made it tick." and added that it was "the biggest load of crap I have ever seen in my entire life.

Thunderbird 5 takes a missile hit. Someone should have done the same to this movie.

I'd have to agree with him. It wasn't the fact that it wasn't shot with marionettes (which Team America would do later in the same year) but that the story was just awful and didn't grasp anything from the original series except the characters and the machines.

A remake of one of the iconic episodes from the series would have been a better way to start out but this is what we got.

Overall Rating: 0.5 stars.

My original stance remains unchanged. I give the film 0.5 of a star for the effects and save the remaining 4.5 stars for when a decent remake is put together.

There's good news on the horizon with Gerry Anderson reportedly working on a new Thunderbirds series... While it's not a new feature film, we can hope this will be something to be appreciated by all generations of fans and bring in new ones as well!

Some information provided in this entry has been taken from the Thunderbirds 2004 movie Wikipedia entry.

Trek Review: Space Seed & A Taste of Armageddon

2011-05-29T10:25:00.003+10:00

Just a bit of a tidbit before today's reviews.

The last blog entry was my 100th on here and also the 22nd for this year, making 2011 the most active year of blogging since I started in 2006. The previous record of blogs from me was 21 in both 2007 and 2010 (hardly an active blogger when you think about it), with 2008 being next with 14 entries and both 2006 and 2009 bottoming out with 11 each. Admittedly, 2006 was only 4 months long.

So, 2011 is set to smash the previous record by far and it's all due to these Sci-Fi and Trek Reviews...

Space Seed

The Enterprise encounters a centuries old Earth ship dead in space. Recovering one of the crewmembers from cryosleep, they discover Khan.

Khan was the last genetically enhanced leader of Earth in the late 1990's and he and his crew escaped, or were banished from Earth. He attempts (and partially succeeds) in taking control of the Enterprise. Kirk and his crew must get it back and figure out what to do with Khan.

This of course is a fantastically important episode for the Original series. However, it was an episode where I had expected and remembered much more from it. Maybe with these matured eyes the glaze has come away but I found Space Seed to be a slow paced episode mostly with Khan and Kirk talking with Khan never revealing too much about himself and the crew unable to fully piece together the puzzle of what they have encountered (the S.S. Botany Bay).

Lt. McGivers is someone you'd really have to question how they got into Starfleet as well, with her immediately becoming infatuated with their 20th century man and then betraying her crew, she comes across as weak and you can hardly feel sympathetic towards her, even when she helps out in the end. The fact she'd go back to Khan for more, even after he brings her to her knees is a bit odd - but that is from a 2011 point of view, not one of 1960's!

The fight between Kirk and Khan could really have been between anyone in a gold uniform and a guy in a red uniform. The stunt doubles were so obvious in these scenes it makes you think they didn't even bother. Of course, it's probably due to budgets of the time again but it was quite laughable - Kirk's shirt ends up torn again! I think we've had more episodes with torn shirts than dead red shirts so far!

The court hearing determines the fate of Khan, his crew and McGivers. Khan is happy with a planet to rule of his own. I wondered why he agreed so willingly to that, but he only wanted to commandeer the Enterprise to fulfil that goal. Spock says at the end that it would be interesting to return in 100 years to see what has become of that civilisation, but hardcore Trekkers will know it won't be that long...

In remastered blu-ray, the effects are again top-notch. Colours and definition are flawless with the new scenes of the Enterprise and Botany Bay all looking much better than the original. However, the pace of the episode seemed lacking, and perhaps my own high expectation of such an important episode made it a little disappointing.

Overall Rating: 6/10

A Taste of Armageddon

The Enterprise is transporting a diplomat, Robert Fox to open relations in the star cluster NGC321. They intercept a message warning them not to approach, but our second boneheaded diplomat in this series uses his authority to force Kirk to take the Enterprise in.

On arrival at Eminiar VII, Kirk's landing party is greeted and informed that the planet is at war with neighbouring Vendikar. The war is fought by computers but no real bombs are dropped and no real casualties occur. The computers determine a number of casualties and those people must report to disintegration stations to fulfil the casualty list!

The Enterprise is included as a casualty of a recent attack and all its crew must report for disintegration. Of course, Kirk and Spock must now work to stop this from happening.

When we first meet the Eminian people, I almost thought we would finally see some Klingon's! They had the sashes, the goaties and smooth foreheads. But I guess that episode will have to wait a little longer. Even with its annoying diplomat on board and throwing about his authority, this episode wasn't too bad. The idea of computers fighting a war is an interesting concept that applies even in today's world, while Kirk's solution to the problem is questionnable, it gives our diplomat a dream job in working with the two warring worlds and settling their differences, while getting the Federation involved as well. He must do a decent job as the transport ship seen (but not mentioned) many years later in Star Trek Generations is named after him!

Scotty shows his mettle in command and we learn of General Order 24, which calls on a starship in orbit to obliterate the planet's surface below.

Again, there are some great effects shots in the remaster and the story is well done.

Overall Rating: 7/10

Trek Review: Court Martial & Return of the Archons

2011-05-25T18:39:00.003+10:00

I haven't been happy with my recent review style for the Original Series episodes so I'm going to try a different technique with these two. I'd prefer to try and concentrate more on my thoughts and observations about the episodes than provide a detailed synopsis of what happened. Let's see how I go with that...

Court Martial

With the Enterprise in orbit of Starbase 11 for repairs, Kirk is put on trial for negligence, resulting from the death of a crewmember.

The opening shot of this episode gives us our first glimpse of another Constitution class ship (the Intrepid) just like the Enterprise which for a shiplover like me gives the episode bonus points! The remaining visual shots show the damage the Enterprise sustained in a recent ion storm, which contributed to the alleged death of Lt. Commander Ben Finney.

This episode shines some light on the legal processes within Starfleet as Commodore Stone initially offers Kirk a 'ground' assignment to cover up the incident if he takes responsibility. Kirk angrily declines and presses for a full court martial to be able to clear his name.

The court martial itself is also quite telling, and we get to hear a bit more about our dear Captain's history as the computer reads out his extensive record. We are also treated to the records of Spock and McCoy as they give testimony.

Of course there's a lady in Kirk's life that makes an appearance in this episode, Areel Shaw, and of course she turns out to be involved in the case as well, the prosecution!

Spock is referred to as a 'Vulcanian' in this episode and it's interesting seeing a human prosecutor try to twist his words while on the stand. It is ultimately Spock, while playing several games of 3D chess against the computer, finds out that the computer is malfunctioning.

We eventually find that Benjamin Finney didn't die and and instead hid himself (very well) to frame Kirk and ruin his career out of revenge for when Kirk ruined his own career many years ago.

After a typical fight with the body doubles and Kirk ripping his shirt, Finney confesses and tells Kirk where the ship computer has been tampered.

Quite a good episode which (as mentioned above) shows the legal system within Starfleet in action. In typical fashion in tidies up nicely at the end. The blu-ray remaster once again shines, particularly with the shots of the damaged Enterprise in orbit, her sister ship the Intrepid and the shuttles. There is also a scene in Commodore Stone's office listing a number of ships and their registries, more for the shiplovers to appreciate!

Overall rating: 8/10, I thought this episode was quite well done and it surprised me.

Return of the Archons

Sulu and O'Neill are fleeing the inhabitants of Beta III. Beamed up to the Enterprise, all is not alright with our ships navigator.

The planet's inhabitants are all mindless, going about their business and talking strangely. They all appear to be under some sort of control. Kirk and his landing party really stand out.

It turns out that a computer, named Landru has taken over and rules over the inhabitants using some sort of telepathy, those who disobey are absorbed, or killed. For a period of 12 hours, a festival allows the people to behave recklessly before returning to control in the morning.

McCoy falls victim to absorption, but Kirk and Spock come upon an ally who leads them to Landru. Kirk overcomes and ultimately destroys Landru by asking a series of difficult questions the immense computer can't handle. Departing, Kirk leaves a team to rebuild the society on the planet.

This episode was a bit slow, but it is important in that we are first introduced to the Prime Directive, Starfleet's order to not interfere with a culture. Kirk technically broke the rule by destroying Landru, though it could be argued that it was the best course of action.

Aside from that though, the episode doesn't leave much more of an impact. The crew are out of their uniforms for most of the episode and most scenes are shot on location again, in a small confined town.

Overall Rating: 5/10

It seems I still need to provide a synopsis of the episode in some form in order to provide context! I'll keep working on it! Feel free to offer suggestions or advice in the mean time :)

Sci-Fi Review: Thunderbirds (The Series)

2011-05-22T08:53:00.008+10:00

Note: All links on this page will open in a new window :)

After receiving the blu-ray box set of Thunderbirds from Eleonor for Christmas in 2009, we have finally finished watching through each episode of the series!

While I remember Thunderbirds from growing up and seeing the series on early morning TV, I was also influenced as it was a favourite series of my father. He purchased a number of VHS tapes with Thunderbirds episodes on them including 'Vault of Death', 'Attack of the Alligators' and his favourite 'The Cham Cham' and also introduced us to other Gerry Anderson productions 'Fireball XL5', 'Stingray' and 'Captain Scarlet'.

Thunderbirds is probably the most popular series of Gerry Anderson's with puppets playing out all of the roles and fabulous, futuristic machines in a world set in the mid 21st century. In this world it seems that nuclear power has been fully embraced as everything from the Thunderbirds themselves and even civil passenger jetliners are powered with nuclear reactors. All the while, Earth's safety measures and quality control appear to have dropped which ultimately leads to a number of disasters with horrific consequences prompting the formation of International Rescue. One disaster in particular sees a Nuclear Power Plant in Australia go into meltdown from a simple gunshot which causes a small fire to take down the plant, the resulting radioactive cloud reaches one of Australia's major cities, Melbourne.

International Rescue is headed by millionaire and former astronaut, Jeff Tracy. He lives on secluded Tracy Island (somewhere in the South Pacific we are led to believe) and has five sons. Four live on the island with him while one (usually John Tracy) is always on watch in orbit aboard their satellite and space station, Thunderbird 5. John listens out for distress calls and emergency transmissions on any frequency. Eventually, once International Rescue become known around the world he is able to listen out for transmissions directed to the team. He then relays the message to Tracy Island where Jeff will coordinate the others accordingly.

Scott, the eldest brother pilots Thunderbird 1 and is the first to leave and arrive on the scene. Thunderbird 1 is a hypersonic aircraft capable of launching like a rocket, but flying horizontally with wings that extend to assist with flight. Scott will organise and run operations via a mobile control centre he is able to setup virtually anywhere. Virgil pilots Thunderbird 2 which can carry support equipment and craft in a detachable pod appropriate for the rescue mission. Popular support craft include Thunderbird 4 (piloted by Gordon), a submarine vehicle for deep water operations and The Mole, used for drilling underground. There is also Firefly which is good for moving large amounts of debris and withstanding high temperatures among others. Thunderbird 3 is their space vehicle, piloted by the youngest Tracy brother, Alan. Thunderbird 3 is the lifeline between Tracy Island and Thunderbird 5 and was crucial in the Sunprobe and Ricochet rescue missions.

Each Thunderbird craft and support vehicle is the work of engineering mastermind, Brains. He lives on Tracy Island among others including Grandma, Kyrano and his daughter Tin-Tin. Brains is also key in several missions, using his knowledge to work out a problem or provide on-hand support.

While most of the operations International Rescue deal with are accident or misadventure, some are instigated by a mysterious villain known (but not named on screen) as The Hood. We are shown that he is the half-brother of Tracy Island guest, Kyrano and has a telepathic hold over him which is used in a few episodes. The Hood's motive is usually to lure International Rescue into action and grab photographs of their craft to learn their secrets. The very emergency that springs International Rescue into operation is caused by the Hood planting a bomb on the supersonic, atomic powered airliner 'Fireflash'.

Thunderbirds is a fun series for all ages. Each episode features a different rescue operation that youngsters would enjoy for the machines in use and the ways in which the IR team are able to overcome the disaster situation. There is plenty of humour involved and much of this comes from Parker, the butler/driver for London based agent Lady Penelope and the pink Rolls-Royce, FAB1.

Standout episodes for me included:

'Trapped in the Sky', the pilot episode involving a supersonic airliner in distress and how International Rescue become operational,
'Terror in New York City', where they are attempting to relocate the Empire State Building - it goes wrong of course,
'The Mighty Atom', features the nuclear plant meltdown in Australia which is nearly replicated at a plant in Africa by the Hood. This episode is the only one to feature all of the Thunderbirds in action,
'City of Fire', a crash in a skyscraper parking lot brings down the world's tallest building (as it would!),
'The Cham Cham', the first Thunderbirds episode I got to see. Has a James Bond-esque feel to it.

My father always told me that Thunderbird 2 was his favourite of the machines with Virgil as its pilot, I think my younger brother followed in that liking while mine became Thunderbird 3. I was a bit surprised to find that Gerry Anderson quoted in one of the featurettes that he never really liked Thunderbird 3 and it shows when it wasn't seen until the 11th episode of the series! TB3 was only used in a few rescue missions (because it was a space rocket) and instead was mainly seen ferrying pilots and supplies between Tracy Island and Thunderbird 5.

With the characters, Eleonor would often liken me to Scott, the eldest brother, Dad reminded me of Virgil (which makes his liking for TB2 and Virgil appropriate) while my younger brother reminded us of Alan, the youngest Tracy brother, particularly when he got stroppy :P

In any case, it's a fun series to watch and on blu-ray the episodes are clear and crisp, as are the strings for the puppets and machines in action! Now we're left with the two feature films 'Thunderbirds Are GO' and 'Thunderbird 6' as well as the live-action flop from 2004.

Thunderbirds Are Go!

Sci-Fi Review: Space Above & Beyond, First Half

2011-05-20T22:13:00.002+10:00

I mentioned back in January that I would be looking through some 'old' sci-fi shows. At the time, I had just started making my way through the series Space: Above and Beyond.

I'm halfway through the limited series now and it has been interesting. The overall storyline follows the 'Wildcards', members of the United States Marine Corps who get caught up in a war between a violent alien race (dubbed 'Chigs') and Earth. The initial attack wipes out some of Earth's first colonies on other planets.

One colony ship was supposed to carry Nathan West and his girlfriend, Kylen. Nathan is pulled from the crew and the ship comes under attack approaching its destination planet. A continuing theme throughout the series so far has been Nathan's quest to find Kylen again - believing she was not killed in the attack on her ship.

The main conflict in the series is between the humans and the Chigs. From their initial attack, the war has not gone well for humanity. Few victories are witnessed and even our hero characters have hard times overcoming the enemy. One thing the series is able to do is bring us down into the dirt and show us the fight and realistic emotions affecting our characters.

Only twelve episodes in, the series has opened up several other storylines. One involves the 'Silicates', androids or artificial intelligence. The Silicates end up helping the Chigs, acting as mercenaries and they also play an important part in Capt. Vansen's past as they killed her parents in front of her when she was a child.

Another story arc deals with the 'In Vitroes' who are artificially gestated humans, but treated as a lower class. An In Vitro took Nathan West's place on the colony ship, while main characters Lt. Hawkes and Col. McQueen are both In Vitro's. Hawkes' story arc takes him through learning about what it means to be human.

Then there is the conspiracy theory story arc which surrounds Aero-Tech and its influence over political parties and decisions on Earth. There's some connection there that isn't fully explored at this point but we are led to believe that they knew about the Chigs before colonisation of other planets began.

The series so far has provided some interesting episodes. Although the effects and props let it down to a fashion by looking quite dated by our current standards, there is a realism to be appreciated in the unfolding of events and experiences of our characters.

Notably, the special effects were ahead of their time in the mid 90's when this show first aired but are hardly outstanding today. I wonder if other shows around the same time would also look as dated? In particular, one of my favourites, Babylon 5.

Looking forward to the remaining half of the series...

Trek Review: Arena & Tomorrow Is Yesterday

2011-05-15T18:25:00.005+10:00

Arena

The Enterprise arrives at Cestus III after receiving an invitation from Commodore Travers. Upon arrival, the crew discover the Cestus III outpost has been destroyed and the invitation was a ruse.

Kirk and his landing party come under attack on the surface while the Enterprise is attacked in orbit by an unknown ship. Kirk's landing party are able to overcome the planetside forces and beam to the ship and pursue the attacking vessel, stretching the capabilities of the warp engines in the pursuit.

Eventually, the unknown ship comes to a complete stop and Kirk attempts to seize the opportunity to destroy them. Unfortunately, the Enterprise also comes to a dead stop and the crew of both ships are contacted by a mysterious alien race, calling themselves the Metrons.

Kirk and the alien captain are transported to a planet where they are to engage in battle against each other. The captain that survives will leave with their ship intact, the losing party will see their ship destroyed.

The duel gets underway and the alien, identified as a Gorn (pictured) soon takes the advantage with his strength. Kirk makes a slow start, but soon begins to recall his history and training and fashions together a weapon with which he significantly wounds his opponent. Instead of killing him, Kirk lets him live and impresses the Metrons with his actions. The Metrons let both ships go at the request of Kirk.

An interesting and probably one of the most popular TOS episodes, with some of the corniest fight sequences between Kirk and the Gorn. What makes this interesting is that we believe the Gorn are the enemy all throughout until we realise that the Gorn may have actually been retaliating against a Federation invasion with the Cestus III outpost built in their space.

Uhura has a scene in this episode which continues from The Galileo Seven with the women screaming at something out of the ordinary (when Kirk disappears) and of course it's all too convenient that the elements Kirk was looking for a just lying out in the open, but the Metrons did say they would find everything they needed for the duel.

The blu-ray remaster again is great. The Gorn gets eyelids that blink and the colours and sounds are once again splendid. The re-touch of Cestus III is flawless and the shots of the Enterprise firing her weapons are well done.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

Tomorrow Is Yesterday

The Enterprise finds itself in a low orbit around Earth after an encounter with a black star. The crew soon realise they have also been propelled through time and are 200 years in the past. A USAF jet fighter on an intercept course is perceived as a threat and Kirk orders the tractor beam be used to keep the aircraft away.

The aircraft breaks up under the strain of the tractor beam and the pilot is beamed aboard the Enterprise to save his life. Kirk goes to meet their guest, Captain John Christopher and introduces him to the ship and provides a look into Earth's future.

Kirk and the crew soon face a problem, with what Capt. Christopher knows, he can't be returned to Earth. Spock's initial findings suggest that Christopher won't be missed as he "made no relevant contribution to history." In error, Spock soon finds out that Christopher's son will man the first Earth-Saturn mission and so he must be returned to Earth. Complicating matters further are the record tapes from Christopher's jet fighter which would have been recovered from the plane's wreckage.

Kirk and Sulu beam down to the compound to retrieve the tapes, they are caught by security, who is soon beamed aboard the Enterprise after Spock becomes concerned with how long Kirk and Sulu have been planetside. The security guard is kept in the transporter room, but Kirk and Sulu trigger an alarm in the compound. Sulu is able to escape quickly but Kirk is interrogated.

Spock and Capt. Christopher form a rescue plan for Kirk along with Sulu.

With everyone back aboard the Enterprise, the matter of returning their guests arises. Using a slingshot effect around the Sun, the Enterprise will travel back through time, with precise use of the transporters allowing both Christopher and the security guard to return to the time and place they went missing. The Enterprise would then continue accelerating forward in time and with precise braking of the warp engines, should return to the 23rd century.

Again, this is one of the first Original Series episodes I remember watching and it's an entertaining one as we return to Earth in the 20th century. One of many episodes (and a movie) that would do this throughout all the Star Trek series! There's an amount of fun in the episode with doses of comedy and the feeling of family among the Enterprise crew. Spock had a cold during this episode and the computer had an upgrade to give it some personality which was a little odd, but overall, the episode is worth watching.

The remastered version turns things up even more with great special effects for the slingshot effect which far outdo the original version's Enterprise shaking about on a piece of string. The only 'lacking' scenes were the stock footage of the Air Force fighter jets at the beginning of the episode.

Overall Rating: 8/10

Trek Review: Shore Leave, The Galileo Seven & The Squire Of Gothos

2011-05-10T22:49:00.003+10:00

Shore Leave

The Enterprise approaches an unexplored planet that seems suitable for the crew to take some well deserved rest and relaxation. A landing party is sent down to investigate before the crew can fully enjoy some proper fresh air.

Once on the ground, Doctor McCoy spots a 6ft rabbit being followed by a little girl and other officers begin finding items or experiencing strange occurrences.

Things become more interesting when Yeoman Barrows is 'attacked' by a mysterious man and Kirk meets his old flame Ruth, exactly as she appeared 15 years ago. The real danger of the planet becomes present when crew members are trapped by a roaring lion, Kirk is tormented by Finnegan, a cadet from his academy days and Dr McCoy is stabbed by a knight on a horse.

In the end, the planet's Caretaker reveals himself to Kirk and the crew on the planet's surface. He informs the party that the planet can manufacture anything from any thought for the crew to experience, or re-experience. The only thing to keep in mind is to be careful of what the crew summon.

I think this was one of the very first TOS episodes I ever saw, after my father purchased it as a standalone episode on some cheap VHS tapes. The whole idea of the Amusement Park Planet is great, but how could you possibly ensure that the 430 Enterprise crew would keep their thoughts in line and not summon something evil?

Anyway, it is an enjoyable and fun episode and most notable for the amount of location shots that take place. In blu-ray remastered form, the episode is amazingly colourful.

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Galileo Seven
The Enterprise is on an emergency mission delivering supplies when it comes upon a quasar. Kirk orders the ship to stop and investigate, much to the inconvenience of High Commissioner Ferris who is overseeing the supply mission.

Spock, Scotty, McCoy and four other crew members take the shuttle Galileo to explore the quasar, but end up crash-landing on a planet surface. The Enterprise has a hard time locating the shuttle due to interference, but embarks on a search that Kirk compares to being worse than finding a needle in a haystack.

On the planet the shuttle crew come under attack from huge beasts throwing spears and rocks. Spock, in command of the shuttle crew begins to irritate some of the human crew members with his cold, calculating logic. To the point where some crew begin to openly question Mr Spock's orders. In the process of reducing weight and repairing the shuttle, crewmen Latimer and Gaetano are killed.

Scotty is able to reroute power from the hand phasers into the shuttle to get them off the planet surface, just as the Enterprise is forced to halt its search. A daring move from Spock alerts the Enterprise to their location and the crew are beamed to safety.

An interesting episode, the first one to properly feature an Enterprise shuttlecraft. High Commissioner Ferris is someone you just want to punch in the face, why it took Kirk so long to remove him from the bridge is beyond me! Another thing worth note in this episode is the amount of irritation Spock's crew suffer and then openly dispute. How this was tolerated by Spock is unknown. It was somewhat obvious which crew members were going to die as the episode unfolded, while Yeoman Mears performed the token 'female' role of being in distress at all the situations unfolding around them.

Remastered in blu-ray this episode looks great, particularly the effects used for the Murasaki quasar.

Overall Rating: 6/10

The Squire of Gothos
On their way to Beta VI, the Enterprise encounters a rogue planet. Attempting to maneuver around it, both Sulu and Kirk disappear from the bridge.

A strange message is sent to the Enterprise prompting Spock to send down a landing party to attempt to locate Kirk and Sulu. On the surface, they find a large manor and upon entering they find the frozen forms of Kirk and Sulu.

The crew meet their captor, introducing himself as Retired General Trelane, the Squire of Gothos. Trelane entertains the crew but it soon becomes clear that he is in charge and has on intention of letting them return to their ship any time soon.

Kirk attempts to outwit Trelane through a duel and destroys Trelane's computer which was assisting the captor in maintaining the facade of the hospitable manor. The Enterprise crew attempt an escape, but Trelane pursues them relentlessly until Kirk returns to the planet, where he faces a trial, another of Trelane's games.

Finally, Kirk convinces Trelane to embark on a hunt and promises to make it interesting, if Trelane will let the Enterprise go. Trelane agrees, but chases Kirk and the Enterprise is never released. Eventually, Trelane's parents come to stop him and let Kirk return to his ship and continue on their way, apologising for Trelane's behaviour.

I actually don't remember this episode, but remember reading about Trelane and how some fans believe he could be a member of the Q Continuum (from The Next Generation era). I could see the link. Trelane's abilities and fascination with humanity are very similar to that of Q.

An interesting episode anyway, dealing with something/someone quite different and Kirk playing the game until he can find an advantage. The blu-ray remaster is again very sharp and colourful, the only flaw being one tiny scene where Kirk is surrounded by bars by Trelane, this scene appears to have been overlooked in the HD update.

Overall Rating: 6/10

First Concert of 2011

2011-05-03T23:24:00.006+10:00

Unlike the end of 2010 where I was able to see off the year with three concerts, it's taken four months to get to 2011's first one which was held on April 25th, ANZAC Day.

Following the release of their fifth album 'Asylum', Disturbed followed up with a world tour. Informed friends of mine were quick to get the info and secure tickets for the event. It felt like ages before we would see the hard hitting metal band on stage but the night finally arrived.

Disturbed were supported by three bands, a local band (whose name I can't remember), As I Lay Dying and Trivium. The support bands will generally get the crowd warmed up for the main act, and while that appeared to be happening for the vast majority of those among the crowd and definitely those in the moshpit, my main criticism here would be that I think support bands should not only warm up the crowd, but be on a similar level of music to the main act. Each support act provided loud and heavy guitar skills but the vocals were from a different genre! I've never been a fan of the 'roaring' and indecipherable kind of metal thats popped up recently but each band prior to Disturbed were from this style of music. For our group it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

Contrasted against the previous Disturbed concert we saw for their 'Indestructible' album, we were treated to bands such as P.O.D. and Alter Bridge. I became a fan of Alter Bridge as a result.

Thankfully Disturbed delivered and all was forgotten about those who had come before. This was easily their biggest show, production wise in Australia. Large screens, big pyro and lights helped their energy get out into the crowd - well, those that loved the band. Most of those in the seats remained seated until after the encore when frontman David Draiman insisted they show some respect (during the song 'Indestructible', a tribute to soldiers of war).

Disturbed's set list included a good amount of variety from their five albums including the expected hits 'Stupify', 'Down With The Sickness' and 'Land Of Confusion' as well as new songs 'Another Way To Die' and 'Warrior'. Notably missing from the list was on of our favourites 'Stricken' but this was replaced by a beaut version of 'Ten Thousand Fists', the opening track of their third album of the same name.

Watch more from the concert from the embedded video and YouTube links below :)

- Asylum
- The Game
- Land Of Confusion
- Inside The Fire & Warrior
- Another Way To Die
- Stupify
- Ten Thousand Fists
- Indestructible, Aussie-Aussie-Aussie, Drum Solo & Down With The Sickness

Another Way To Die

Ten Thousand Fists

If you're a fan and you haven't yet seen Disturbed on stage, I'd recommend you do it next time they're down here!

Trek Review: The Conscience of the King & Balance of Terror

2011-04-11T22:30:00.002+10:00

The Conscience of the King

Captain Kirk is watching a play with a friend, Thomas Leighton. Leighton informs Kirk that he believes the main actor, Anton Karidian is in fact the infamous Kodos The Executioner.

Kirk does some investigating which seems to backup Leighton's accusation, but Leighton is soon found dead, shortly after Kirk is introduced to Karidian's daughter, Lenore.

Kirk hatches a plan to transport Lenore and her actors to their next destination instead of their scheduled transport ship and begins to form a relationship with Lenore. Amongst his investigations he finds out that of the 9 witnesses to see Kodos' face during his time ruling Tarsus IV and eventual killing of over 4000 colonists, 7 have been killed. Lt Riley (seen in The Naked Time) and James T Kirk are the last 2 surviving.

An attempt is made on Riley's life that puts him in Sickbay and an overloaded Phaser almost kills Kirk (and Spock). Kirk confronts Karidian in his quarters but doesn't find justice there. It's not until the actors put together a play for the Enterprise crew that the truth is uncovered, with Lenore admitting she had killed the 7 other eyewitnesses and that soon both Riley and Kirk would be dead too.

Karidian is distraught to hear this and Kirk, overhearing moves to secure both Anton and Lenore, but not before Lenore grabs a hand phaser from an Enterprise guard. In the commotion that follows, she shoots her father, mortally wounding him. Eventually they are both taken away.

A pretty decent episode with an unexpected ending with Lenore's involvement. The remastered episode benefits from some of the best 'beauty shots' of the Enterprise in the series so far. I think this is also the first girl Kirk actually manages to romance as he will become known for and the first (and perhaps only) time I've heard a 'Double Red Alert' issued aboard a ship?

Overall Rating: 7/10

Balance of Terror

Interrupting a wedding ceremony onboard, the Enterprise is alerted to attacks on Earth Outposts bordering the Romulan Neutral Zone. Things have been quiet in this region of space for almost a century since the Earth-Romulan War so tensions are quite high.

The Enterprise arrives to find nothing left of three outposts and a fourth, under attack, is able to transmit an image of the attacking ship.

Kirk engages in a game of cat and mouse with the invader before conferring with his staff and ultimately deciding to engage the enemy for encroaching and attacking Earth territory. Kirk and the Enterprise ultimately prevail and learn a bit about the Romulans in the process. Unfortunately, but somewhat expected, one of the marriage participants dies in the conflict.

Again, this is an episode that plays out quite differently to how I remember it from the first time. I imagined the battle was a bit more exciting and both the Romulan ship and the Enterprise were equally wounded. As it turns out, the Enterprise had the upper hand throughout the episode. The Romulan Commander hardly appeared a match for Kirk as he was more preoccupied with returning his ship home.

Either way, this is the first Trek episode based around a battle. Certain scenes and events reminded me of The Next Generation episode 'The Neutral Zone' with the tension unfolding in the opening scenes and discovering the destroyed outposts. In blu-ray, the episode is once again reproduced splendidly, though one thing I noticed was the special effects wizards showed the Enterprise firing torpedoes instead of phaser beams during the battle sequences. From reading the entry on Memory Alpha, it seems these effects were used before the term 'Photon Torpedo' was developed, however, the problem with continuity of the remastered series is that we've already seen the phaser beams employed in the episode 'The Corbomite Maneuver'.

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Focus - One Month On...

2011-04-05T23:47:00.003+10:00

Hey All,

I've owned my Ford Focus XR5 Turbo for a month now! How quickly that time goes. I'm still technically within the 'run-in' period at just over 1400km's on the clock and only just today (re)figured out how to adjust the steering settings - sporty it is :)

Still loving the car, getting huge smiles every time I hear that engine going for it and she's still surprising me from time to time. Have I looked back at the Cougar I left behind? Not as much as I thought. But life's been busy, so even the time I get to enjoy my new car is limited.

The weather hasn't helped and so she's only had one wash so far, about two weeks ago when there was a break in the rain.

As comes with any car that you look after, I'm still paranoid when I park her anywhere - but I'm loving every moment of the driving experience and even looking at the car, while maybe not as sexy as a Cougar, she's still a fine looking machine!

I'm actually looking forward to having some time to properly enjoy the driving experience on a proper 'drivers road' out there somewhere. My daily commute to and from work doesn't offer much inspiring bitchumen to get into!

Dan

Trek Review: The Corbomite Maneuver & The Menagerie, Parts 1 & 2

2011-03-24T17:01:00.000+11:00

The Corbomite Maneuver

The Enterprise is out on the fringe of known space and pushing farther when it comes across a strange cube shaped object (not a Borg ship!) blocking it's path.

Perceiving a threat from the object as it rotates in front of the Enterprise and begins to emit large amounts of radiation, endangering the crew, Kirk orders the object destroyed with phaser fire. Continuing on their journey a larger, spherical ship approaches the Enterprise, disabling her and threatening impending destruction for their aggressive actions against the cube shaped buoy.

Crew tensions run high, but Kirk responds with a bluff, of a special material that all Earth ships are equipped with, called Corbomite. Warning the aliens that the destruction of the Enterprise would result in the destruction of their own ship. The bluff pays off, for the moment when their time passes and nothing transpires.

A smaller ship breaks away from the sphere and tows the Enterprise away. Using the engines and the helm to flick the ship out of tow, the Enterprise breaks free, crippling the smaller vessel. Kirk takes Spock and Lt Bailey over to the crippled vessel where they meet Balok, a childlike being of the First Federation. Their entire encounter to this point had been a test. Balok offers a cultural exchange, where Lt Bailey offers to remain aboard Balok's ship, the Fesarius to learn more.

This has long been one of my favourite TOS episodes. It marks the first time in this re-run that we see the Enterprise fire her weapons and the remastered Fesarius is far improved from the original version. This episode is mostly drawn out with long scenes of tension and authority. There's a big sense of mystery yet immediate danger from the beginning when the warning buoy appears and Spock puts the ship on alert.

More of the comradery between Kirk and Spock is evident in this episode, with Kirk relying on Spock for input, even on decisions Kirk has already made. Spock even comments on this. On the same note, there's also signs in this episode that not every member of the crew likes Spock, with Lt Bailey often challenging him.

Overall Rating: 7/10

The Menagerie, Parts 1 & 2

The only two-parter episode of the Original Series. The Enterprise arrives at Starbase 11, but upon beaming to the surface, Starbase staff report that there was no such communication ordering the Enterprise to travel there.

Kirk and Spock meet Fleet Captain Pike, whom Spock served under while aboard the Enterprise 13 years ago. Pike is the victim of a terrible accident that has left him disfigured and stuck inside a chair that offers him mobility and the basic communication skills of Yes or No via the light/beeper.

Spock tampers with the Starbase communications console relaying orders to the Enterprise to head under computer control and follow out a top secret mission. It soon turns out that Spock has deceived the entire crew and is really using the Enterprise to transport Pike to the planet Talos IV, a forbidden world, but a world the Enterprise, Pike and Spock have all been to before.

A court martial ensues when Spock turns himself in and he explains the reasons behind transporting Pike to Talos IV. What follows is a retelling of Gene Roddenberry's original pilot for Star Trek, entitled 'The Cage'. It shows the Enterprise under Pike's command picking up a distress beacon from an old Earth ship which leads them to Talos IV. Pike is captured and trapped in a Cage, but meets a single Earth woman who has been detained since her ship crashlanded there. The telepathic Talosians are secretly trying to find her a mate so the species can continue to live on in their 'Menagerie'.

The Talosians offer their captives the chance to exist in any world they choose, an illusion of their making, but Pike resists and eventually breaks free.

Spock reveals that returning Pike to Talos IV will allow him to live as a free man again, instead of being restricted to his chair.

These two episodes form an interesting way of incorporating the original adventure/pilot episode within the current series. It also canonises the events of 13 years ago where the Enterprise was operating under an almost completely different crew. However, after watching many, many reruns of 'The Cage' after it was 'uncovered' and made available, I'm glad the version in 'The Menagerie' was somewhat cut down and to the point.

The Talosians are an annoying race in my eyes, no wonder Pike hated them so much in his first encounter with them! 'The Menagerie' has its flaws, how Spock could so easily break into the communications room of a Starbase and how he had a prepared answer for every question from Enterprise personnel when issuing the top secret mission was a bit convenient. Kirk and Commodore Mendez following the Enterprise in a shuttle was probably a bit foolish and the way Starfleet allows Pike to return to Talos IV and lets Spock off with no charges or reprimand at the end just offered a very tidy ending.

Overall Rating: 6/10, both parts.

Turning 28

2011-03-23T22:47:00.003+11:00

So, last week I turned 28 and I've been lucky enough to have had a decent bit of celebrating to coincide with getting another year older.

Oddly enough, even though my birthday fell on March 17th, I didn't actually receive any of the usual gifts until the weekend at the earliest. Heck, at my age I don't come to expect anything and the company of good friends is enough, but it was interesting in any case.

Earlier in the month, Mum and Dad threw a dinner to celebrate the birthday's of Eleonor and myself at Vaby's restaurant in Penrith.

On the day itself, some of my work colleagues put together a morning tea including Barbie printed napkins, chocolate cake and sharing a few laughs. For dinner, Eleonor took me out to the El Phoenician restaurant in Parramatta (see picture below).

I had previously decided to do something on the weekend and with all the hype surrounding a particular burger place at the end of last year, it seemed like an opportune time to experience them first hand. So I managed to get most of my friends together and experience Killa Burger in all their glory. Check out their 30cm across Killa Burger in the picture below :)

Surprisingly, for such large burgers, they were great to eat, particularly when cut into manageable pieces that our party could enjoy. Definitely recommend visiting their store if you're after something unique, if you're hungry or just want good value for money!

I had planned to incorporate some afternoon activities such as putt-putt or something but the wet weather literally dampened those efforts so we split up. Some of the crowd would return for dinner at St Patrick's Tavern in Seven Hills later that night - an appropriate venue considering my birthday falls on St Patrick's Day. The restaurant seemed to have forgotten about my booking but soon allocated us a table and we had a reasonable time, although they did seem a bit understaffed for the amount of people dining on the night.

Following dinner we chilled out at The Winston, a new place for us to check out but one we'd have no problems revisiting again.

The weekend came to an end before Eleonor was able to venture to a Kmart store to get my planned birthday present. She'll now have a riding partner when she goes bike riding about the places and this is the first bike I'll have owned in quite a few years.

With the continuous wet weather I haven't yet been able to take her out for a proper ride to see that everything's okay but I'm looking forward to that first ride and more to come of course. We've already planned to go to some parks and get fit now that we both can ride.

It's been a busy few weeks and if it's not my birthday there'll be other things happening to keep us occupied. Among all the Trek Reviews I've been posting I'd like to try and keep some of my life in these updates from time to time as well!

All the best, until the next blog...

Dan

Trek Review: Miri & Dagger of the Mind

2011-03-14T23:30:00.000+11:00

Miri

The Enterprise discovers a planet identical to Earth - many lightyears away. A landing party to the surface discovers the planet appears to mirror Earth from the mid 1900's.

Soon enough, the party are attacked by a mutated humanoid and the investigation begins.

So it turns out that the planet is mainly inhabited by children and further investigation uncovers that the original inhabitants were working on prolonging life, but there's obviously been some side-effects.

Kirk and the landing party (except Spock) start showing signs of infection and the children take their means of communicating with the ship in orbit which puts McCoy's plans to cure everyone in jeopardy, but Kirk's smooth moves and ability to charm Miri, the first young girl they encountered after arriving at the planet, allow the Enterprise crew to be saved.

This story has parallels with more recent stories like I Am Legend and while it was a decent tale, I just found the children annoying, particularly the "bonk bonk" kid, who also reminded me of someone I went to primary school with!

The blu-ray remaster is one of the most flawless episodes we've seen so far though.

Overall rating: 5/10

Dagger of the Mind

The Enterprise arrives at Tantalus Penal Colony to pick up some cargo and unknowingly takes aboard a stowaway, a crazed Dr. Van Gelder.

Van Gelder finds his way to the bridge and requests asylum. Kirk and psychiatrist Dr Helen Noel beam down to Tantalus to investigate where they meet Dr Adams, administrator of the penal colony.

For the viewers, it's quickly apparent that things on Tantalus aren't quite right. Dr Noel though is lapping up Dr Adams' explanations and methods in keeping tranquility among the penal colonists.

Kirk and Noel find a room fitted with a neural neutraliser and soon realise this is the source of Van Gelder's claims. In a familiar storyline and turn of events to 'What Are Little Girls Made Of', Kirk ends up being shown the full strength of this torturous device.

With Dr Noel's help on the ground and Spock & McCoy working aboard the Enterprise, the crew are able to cause a powercut which deactivates the neural neutraliser and save Kirk. When the power is regained, Dr Adams' mind is wiped by the neural neutraliser and he dies.

As mentioned above, this story seems similar to that of 'What Are Little Girls Made Of'. The interesting parts surround Dr Helen Noel, who we find out had a prior encounter with Captain Kirk and manages to hold her own whilst sabotaging the penal colony.

Overall rating: 5/10

My First New Car

2011-03-12T21:57:00.005+11:00

I've spoken about my passion for cars on many occasions before but never really gone into any details about any of the rides I've owned and driven around.

After nearly 6 years of ownership of my most recent ride, a Ford Cougar, it was coming time to change. That car was almost 10 years old and it was beginning to show, even though to most onlookers the car was still in great condition and running fine.

I ordered her replacement after much research in late February and last week took delivery of a brand new Ford Focus XR5 Turbo - an early Birthday present to myself! This is the first time I've been able to own a brand new car and it's a great feeling mixed with excitement, anxiousness and paranoia!

After one week of ownership the main commute has been to and from work and I'm still trying to get used to all the new features and the different driving experience this car offers. Where the Cougar was a great cruiser, this car regains some practicality and is a little bullet with the turbo allowing things to happen a lot faster. I know the car has quite a lot more in it and it's something I'm adjusting to slowly so I don't screw up in my early days!

While the last car was quite the project car when it came to modifications and accessories I added on, this car will be something totally different. Of course, situations are different and this car reflects that, but with so many other, bigger things to be looking at this year, like the wedding and other house related projects, the car will remain pretty much as is for the timebeing. The beauty being that the car is perfect as it is for the timebeing anyway!

So that's my story and quick wrap-up - let me introduce you to my new car...

Until next time,

Dan

Trek Review: Mudd's Women & What Are Little Girls Made Of?

2011-02-19T17:00:00.000+11:00

Time to review two more episodes from The Original Series. It's interesting watching them in a different order than I remember. But most of the inconsistencies are starting to become less noticeable the further along we go.

Mudd's Women

I remember this episode not for the women, but for the character of Mudd, Harcourt Fenton Mudd. I just remember him as an annoying character and I could see why in the re-watch. Yet, he had some comedic traits that had been missing from recent episodes as well.

So the Enterprise is pursuing an unknown ship which trips up in an asteroid field and the crew are beamed aboard. Three ladies and Mr Mudd, aliasing as Leo Walsh. It doesn't take long for his cover to be blown though while the women seem to have certain control over the male members of the Enterprise crew. We find out soon enough that all is not as it seems.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise is limping along as the pursuit of Mudd's ship has stricken her lithium crystals and she needs replacements, fast. Mudd, becoming aware of this hatches a plan to offload his women to the miners on Rigel XII and allow himself freedom in order for the Enterprise to be repaired.

In the end, it sort of goes pearshape for Mudd. The miners get their girls and their magical anti-aging drug and Kirk gets his crystals to get the Enterprise under way again.

Remastered again in all its excellence, this was the first episode where we see some of the banter that becomes more common between Spock and McCoy (right at the end).

Overall Rating: 6/10

What Are Little Girls Made Of?

The Enterprise and her crew arrive at Exo III to investigate the disappearance of Dr Roger Korby whose last message was received over 5 years ago. Korby was also engaged to Nurse Chapel at this time, so she's on the bridge awaiting any news.

Korby transmits a message to the ship and a landing party beam down to the surface to meet him. Two red-shirts almost instantly die and one of Korby's men is revealed to be an android. Soon enough we find out there are more androids and Korby is not who he appears to be either...

Korby tries to persuade Kirk to stay and observe before reporting to Starfleet. Kirk is resistant given the measures Korby has gone to. Korby eventually creates an android clone of Kirk which he uses to send to Enterprise for his own purposes. None of this matters as Spock detects the clone and Korby's plan comes undone. In the end, Korby is revealed as an android and all of them are destroyed.

Quite an episode. Nothing too memorable out of it except character building for Nurse Chapel and some other characters. It's a bit sad that everyone who was originally on Exo III were androids and dead by the end of the episode! Though we do get to see some more Kirk fighting techniques!

Overall Rating: 5/10

Star Trekkin' Across The Universe...

2011-02-18T17:43:00.006+11:00

I've been playing computer games for as long as we've had a computer to play them on. From Commodore 64 days (with a tape drive) through to our first PC, an IBM 486 to what I'm running now. During that time, I've never had a game really keep me captivated for more than a few months - something strategy related like the original Command & Conquer or perhaps some racing game like Need For Speed, even Microsoft's Flight Simulator series, they'd all fall away or out of interest sooner or later.

So, it's interesting that I'm playing a game - Star Trek Online, and I've been actively playing for over a year!

STO celebrated its First Anniversary only last week and perhaps because there's a payable subscription to this MMORPG or just because it's Star Trek, I'm still logging in and getting my game on. From early days of watching Star Trek, I'd always wanted to command my own ship and this game has allowed me to do that.

Based in the well known and well established timeline laid out from The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise (basically, all of Trek with ties to the recent 2009 movie as well) we've skipped into the 25th century. STO is based in the year 2409 (though with your quick succession through the ranks and stories I reckon I'm at least at 2411 by now!) and continues various storylines from where they were left off in the shows and movies.

Cryptic Studios, behind the game, are doing an excellent job and including everything any die-hard Trekker could want. From the Original Enterprise, to playable Caitians, old time enemies such as the Gorn and new ones like the Hirogen all coming together in a galaxy of conflict as the Borg are mounting a new invasion, the Undine (Species 8472) are wreaking havoc as well and many races like the Cardassians and Romulans are picking up the pieces from their devastated worlds.

I now have two characters running through the STO storyline. My main character, based on a 25th Century Science Officer version of myself is ranked Rear Admiral and commanding a Sovereign class starship, the Conquest. Toon number 2 is a Caitian Tactical Officer commanding a trusty old Constitution class ship, the Liberty.

With new content constantly around the corner, new missions, new ships and a healthy user base, I don't know when the interest will end. With no current Star Trek television series running - this is the next best thing!

Happy First Anniversary Star Trek Online!

Trek Review: The Enemy Within

2011-02-10T17:08:00.002+11:00

It's been quite busy lately with the wedding plans starting to come together among other things going on in the world. I'll get blogging on those as soon as I get a chance. Nothing gets in the way of progressing through our Star Trek and Thunderbirds episodes though!

The Enemy Within

This is one of those famous episodes as I can recall scenes from it but don't actually remember seeing it in its entirety. However, I was quite surprised at how good this episode was.

Surveying a planet, the Enterprise must beam up a landing party before the cold of night. A crewman with a minor injury beams aboard first for medical attention before Captain Kirk. Once aboard the ship, Kirk feels a bit queasy, so Scotty walks with him to the Captain's quarters. Unknowingly to either is that the transporter beams up another duplicate of Captain Kirk while the room is unattended.

This new Kirk begins roaming the ship and drinking Saurian brandy and attacks Yeoman Rand. Meanwhile, Scotty discovers a problem with the transporters when they beam up an alien dog (a dog, in an alien suit! So cute!) and an 'evil' duplicate appears.

The crew become aware that this must also have happened to Kirk and a Kirk on Kirk (or his lookalike) duel brings the imposter to sickbay for monitoring. Sulu and the landing party begin freezing on the planet's surface before Scotty attempts to combine the two dog (halves) together - unsuccessfully. It's with Spock's mathematical mind that Kirk is able to be saved.

This was quite a good episode in that the friendship between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is starting to begin to show and look natural. Kirk's interactions with the crew also feel more 'real' to me now.

The transporter malfunction is the first of many that will form the basis for a Trek episode in the future no doubt and the writers obviously hadn't thought of shuttlecraft at this point because no one thought to use one of those to rescue Sulu and the landing party!

In any case, this episode was quite well done.

Overall rating: 8/10

For those with the Blu-ray set, select the 'red button' from the disc menu for a music video of the new remastered special effects, in DVD quality format :

Trek Review: The Naked Time

2011-02-06T18:06:00.004+11:00

We've been quite busy these past few weeks and the recent Sydney heatwave hasn't helped much either. But we did manage to fit in another episode of Remastered Star Trek! In other sci-fi news, I've put in my preorder for the DVD set Dark Skies and received the entire series of Star Trek: The Next Generation, also on DVD - for when we get through our Original adventures :P

The Naked Time

The Enterprise is monitoring the planetary collapse of the planet Psi2000. Spock and crewman 'nobody' beam down to find the place frozen and the science team they were supposed to pick up have died. Each member in strange circumstances.

Crewman nobody makes a noob error by removing his environmental suit to examine underneath a table - in doing so he unknowingly picks up a virus.

The virus quickly spreads through the Enterprise crew upon their return to the ship, and after the scanners and decontamination doesn't pick it up. Crew start displaying careless and juvenile behaviour which jeopardises the ship as it tries to remain in orbit around the collapsing planet below.

McCoy saves the day but not without Sulu showing off his fencing skills, Kirk slapping Spock in the face, Nurse Chapel (her first time in the show so far) showing her love for Spock and Kirk getting his shirt ripped!

I only remember scenes from this episode but not the entire thing. I thought it was interesting that Nurse Chapel's first outing would be the one where she announces her love for Spock. I had often read about the relationship these two characters had, so will be interesting to see if there is further mention of it in upcoming episodes. Speaking of love, it was also the first time I can recall Kirk outwardly showing his affection for the Enterprise. During a moment of frustration he calls out to the ship, telling her he won't lose her.

The remastered effects for this episode were great. The new look of Psi2000 gave the planet a realistic feel, the science station added in and the cleanup for blu-ray again make this purchase all worthwhile :)

Overall Rating: 6/10

Also worthy of a watch was the 'Spacelift' featurette which showed how they went about remastering the Original series into the versions we're appreciating in the 21st century!

That ends the first disc of Season One, looking forward to continuing the adventure!

Trek Review: Where No Man Has Gone Before

2011-01-20T23:17:00.004+11:00

I'm just going to quickly note that I found out today that Dark Skies is coming out soon on DVD! As part of my old sci-fi revival, I think I'm going to have to get my hands on this set and enjoy watching through it all again!

Where No Man Has Gone Before

So, the third episode in our 'Trek' through the Original episodes brings us to what I remember being the original pilot. Oh how interesting it is to rewatch because it was almost completely different to how I originally remembered the episode!

The Enterprise beams aboard an old beacon from an Earth ship, the S.S. Valiant. Almost immediately it begins transmitting and we're thrown into what I figured to be a very intense moment as the ship is put on Red Alert!

The Enterprise reaches the edge of the galaxy and at that point, several crew members are injured, or struck. One, an old friend of Kirk's, Gary Mitchell is the most obviously affected and begins showing signs of kinetic abilities as the episode progresses. Ultimately he begins to take control, take lives and eventually a showdown between he and Kirk takes place on the planet Delta Vega.

This is a good episode, a character builder for Kirk's character, forced to decide the fate of his long time friend. We also see more of the comeradery between Kirk and Spock in this episode, and Scotty makes an appearance in the transporter room while Sulu is seen in a blue uniform!

My main question from this episode is; what on Earth was up with Spock's makeup and eyebrows?! He looked pretty ridiculous in this episode! I also didn't get why he had to yell out the commands and readouts he got but I guess it added to the suspense in the scenes where the Enterprise was crossing the Galactic Barrier?

I think the writers also played too much into letting the audience know that Spock wasn't human and that he had no emotions. I think every cast member made a comment about it at some point in the episode!

Nevertheless it's a fun episode. We get to see Kirk fighting the enemy amongst a polystyrene set and roll about with that huge phaser while getting his shirt ripped! The blu-ray remaster again is flawless in showing up the flaws of the set and makeup design of the time. But it's all part of the charm. I'm still watching with the new Special FX which showed off the new look they gave to the Galactic Barrier and Delta Vega.

Overall Rating: 7/10

I still have a soft-spot for the original pilot! haha :)

Trek Review: The Man Trap & Charlie X

2011-01-09T19:45:00.005+11:00

I feel like I'm the last person to watch through Star Trek (The Original Series) and for someone as big a fan of the whole franchise as me, that's a little weird! But it's true, of the many series and movies that make up the Star Trek universe, The Original Series is among those that I haven't seen in its entirety. That will soon change as I embark on watching through the remastered blu-ray episodes in my re-appreciation of old sci-fi.

I'll start by saying that I'm used to 'The Cage' or 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' being the pilot episodes of The Original Series, so when the blu-ray set began with 'The Man Trap', I was a little surprised...

The Man Trap

Apparently this episode was chosen to air first by luck of the draw. Clearly it's a character building episode focussing on Dr McCoy with Kirk and Spock having large roles but ultimately they're helping McCoy through the events of the episode.

Arriving at a Federation outpost, McCoy looks forward to catching up with an old flame of his. I don't think we've even got to the opening credits before one of the away team dies! Within the first ten minutes there are several other deaths from the Enterprise crew - notably, no red shirts though!

So there's an alien being on the loose and murdering people. They soon realise it's killing for salt, which it must consume to survive. Ultimately, the creature ends up on the Enterprise and Kirk, Spock and McCoy become involved in the showdown to stop more people from dying.

I'll say I feel 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' is the preferable pilot for the series. While this episode focusses on the 'strange new worlds' part of Star Trek, it seemed slowly paced and a little predictable in outcome. I could be saying this with my prior knowledge of the show, however I don't remember seeing this episode before.

I also didn't feel the crew were at their best yet, they didn't feel like they had come together at this point. Perhaps they had only just been assigned to the ship, but I'm sure the characters will grow in time. Scotty and Chekov fail to appear in this episode.

The remastered effects are amazing and blu-ray brings out the colours and details as you'd expect from the format.

Overall episode rating: 6/10

Charlie X

This is another episode I don't remember seeing. The tale of an adolescent male being transported aboard the Enterprise on his way to a colony. On his trip he tries to blend in with the crew, he does this by making everyone like him and doesn't quite understand when people try to go about their normal duties or go about their normal lives.

In the end, we find out there is more to Charlie than meets the eye, not before Kirk is forced to take drastic measures to save his ship and his crew. We particularly found the conversation between Kirk and Charlie humourous, when Kirk is trying to explain why hitting Yeoman Rand on her bottom was wrong. This episode alsot stood out for the amount of 'adult themes' with men commenting on the ladies of the ship (carried over from the previous episode as well) - you can really tell it's the 60's!

Another character building episode with more a focus on Kirk and Spock this time, while Yeoman Rand gets her fair share of screen time as the young Charlie falls for her.

Again, the effects make this episode a great (re)watch. Some of the effects shots, particularly one of the Enterprise rendezvous with the Antares look so much better than the original. All colours and audio are once again vibrant.

Overall episode rating: 6/10

...and so I'm on my way watching through the original Star Trek!

Warp Speed!

Our Engagement's First Anniversary

2011-01-09T18:47:00.008+11:00

My dedicated readers (however many of you are out there) would know that on January 7th, 2010, I proposed (successfully) to my long-time girlfriend, Eleonor at the 360 Dining and Bar Restaurant at Sydney Tower.

So, celebrating a year from that point I took Eleonor out for dinner in the city again. This time, to Steel Bar and Grill for something different. Eleonor had actually come across this restaurant while searching for Reception venues for our upcoming wedding and it had a unique look about it that I thought was worth checking out.

Steel Bar and Grill

The venue, staff and (most importantly) the food were excellent! I would highly recommend anyone to go and try them out! Maybe the fact they're participating in the Fast Festival Feasts for the Sydney Festival might be a little extra encouragement too!?

Following our dinner we had a bit of a walk around the city and Darling Harbour, retracing our steps as we'd done the previous year. The difference this time was we were able to get onboard the SkyView Wheel for a few revolutions and some interesting views over the Entertainment Centre precinct.

SkyView Wheel

The following night we caught up with friends and went to checkout the First Night of Sydney's Festival which included a lot of walking about the different venues, catching live shows and bumping into other friends at random! Meals were provided by Bavarian Bier Cafe for dinner and Passionflower for some awesome dessert :)

Super Choc Brownie @ Passionflower

Abraxas Video - One Year on YouTube

2011-01-06T18:56:00.004+11:00

A year ago, I uploaded my first video to YouTube on a channel I thought I'd dedicate to aviation videos. I've uploaded aviation videos before, all of them going to the popular site FlightLevel350, but I soon found it restrictive as only certain videos could get through the approval process to be showcased (I only had one rejection though) and there appeared to be a niche group of enthusiasts viewing the videos.

YouTube offers a far greater audience and more critics and enthusiasts. After 12 months and 18 videos I can say I've enjoyed the ride so far and have found a wider range of videos and producers out there. YouTube allows me to showcase any video I've taken, and that allowed my first project - 'Serenade of the Skies' to go live. A mix of footage shot between 2007 and 2009 arranged to a soundtrack by Immediate Music.

18 videos over 12 months isn't exactly a rapid upload rate compared to other aviation enthusiasts and that can be blamed on me leaving the account inactive for a good few months after uploading 'Serenade'. I hope to turn it around from 2011 as I'm uploading the footage in a chronological order!

2007 brings in HD video after I purchased my Sony Handycam for the China holiday we went on. 'Serenade' provides a preview of the upcoming aviation clips from that camera including spotting adventures at Sydney Airport and Richmond Air Force Base as well as passenger views of flights taken to different destinations around the world.

Celebrating a year on YouTube, I sent out the below message to AbraxasVideo's friends, subscribers and those who took the time to comment on some of my other uploads...

A year ago today, I uploaded my first video to YouTube. I titled it 'Serenade of the Skies' (partially based on the soundtrack the video plays to), a showcase of aviation video work I recorded between 2007 and 2009.

Over the past year, particularly in the recent few months I've uploaded 18 videos of aviation adventures throughout 2006 and 2007, now it's time to go for better quality!

If you haven't seen 'Serenade' yet, I hope you take a look and enjoy it. It's a preview of videos to come. I'm aiming to get them online on a regular basis - particularly as we're now in 2011, these videos are starting to get a bit old!

I'll be adding more spotting and passenger view videos this year and am preparing to start work on a follow-up to 'Serenade' as well. So I hope you'll enjoy what this channel has in-store :)

Happy 1st Birthday Abraxas Video!

Sci-Fi Shows from the Past

2011-01-05T21:59:00.004+11:00

For Christmas in 2009 my girlfriend (now fiancee), Eleonor gave me the blu-ray set for Thunderbirds, the iconic series involving puppets and fantastic rescue machines set in the 21st century.

As a result, she and I have been watching through the series through 2010 and we're almost finished. It's been fun watching how the future world was depicted from the 60's and all the explosions and elaborate rescue scenes and setups.

One thing I had considered was reviewing the episodes as we watched through them but I might have to wait for a re-run sometime in the future.

I was also inspired last year to look up some other old sci-fi shows in order to give them another look. First, there was Dark Skies, a series based around real Earth events in the 60's and 70's involving aliens and conspiracy theories. I've managed to track down some copies of the series but haven't begun to watch through them again.

The second show was Space: Above and Beyond. This show was on in the mid 90's from memory and my father caught the odd episode or two but I never really got into it. I was following Star Trek: The Next Generation and Babylon 5 at the time. I have managed to start watching through the short series of Space... and I'm interested in seeing where the series ends up, as it was cut short after its first season.

Finally, there's Star Trek. There are very few episodes I haven't seen from all the Trek franchises, but The Original Series has the most holes in it. I've recently managed to get my hands on the remastered blu-ray collection and look forward to going through those episodes, hopefully with Eleonor too! (I've spared her from Space: Above and Beyond for the moment.)

So, 2011 could see this blog evolve a little to include some episodic reviews of some old fashioned sci-fi, with fresh/new eyes.

I'll see how I go anyway...

2010: The Year of Gaining Independence

2011-01-01T11:32:00.004+11:00

Another year down and a new one in the making! Welcome 2011, but as usual, it's time for me to sum up the events that made up 2010...

2010 started off with my proposal to my long time girlfriend, Eleonor. Thankfully she accepted so the year was off to a great start already! By the end of June our house had finished construction and we had our keys to move in - something we're still working on over 6 months later!

In May we enjoyed our trip to Egypt, exploring the ancient wonders and stopping over at amazing Dubai on the way home. A truly memorable trip and experience!

Wedding plans and preparations took a backseat for much of the year, even though my proposal was in January. Congratulations to my good friend Dave and his wife Vanessa who were wed on one of the hottest days in Sydney, also in January.

Regarding my hobbies, I spent some of the year shrinking my aviation model collection but not as focussed as I have been in past years. Something I aim to address in 2011 and cut the collection right back to the few I really want. I did manage to cut down my car collection and still a little bit more trimming to go in the new year.

I picked up the guitar a little more this year, spurred on by the concerts of Metallica and Linkin Park at the end of the year as well as new album releases from Linkin Park, Disturbed, Three Days Grace and Alter Bridge... Unfortunately my flying lessons all but ended after the flying school I was with was shut down in the first few months of 2010, however I made an effort to get down to the airport on a few occasions to continue spotting, photographing and filming aircraft movements.

I started up two YouTube channels this year, Abraxas Video dedicated to my aviation interests and the other for my own personal videos from around the places. Both channels have received attention from fellow YouTuber's which gives me confidence and feedback in the work I'm uploading there.

I'm looking forward to a new year and new adventures. 2011 will be another busy year as we continue to sort out our new house and fix up the backyard and some more of the rooms. It will also be chaotic towards the end of the year as the finishing touches on our wedding plans come together for the ceremony in early December (you read it here first!) and then there's the excitement of planning the honeymoon and look towards 2012. But, not wanting to get too far ahead of myself I'll be looking at taking each day as it comes.

2010 saw me post 21 entries into this blog, which is an equal personal best with 2007 (for those keeping track!) I'll hope to continue the updates on a regular basis in 2011 and see how we go with that - perhaps get some of my audience back once again? Of course, for more up-to-date updates, there's always my Twitter account!

All the best to each of you, I hope 2011 proves to be fun and prosperous for you all!

See you out there :)

Rocking to the end of 2010

2010-12-30T23:04:00.003+11:00

The second half of 2010 has sure been busy and interesting. With the Air and Motorshows covered in the last entry to this entry which covers music concerts.

Metallica

This goes back to May when I first learnt that iconic metal band, Metallica would be coming to Sydney to do a show in November. Unfortunately, the ticket sales would begin while I was away in Egypt, so I thought I'd never get to see them. Thankfully, a special pre-sale release came up and I was able to secure tickets almost as soon as the clock ticked over to open them for sale!

Fast forward to November and Eleonor and I are seeing them live in an awesome show that lived up to the hype and expectations. So much so I was further fuelled to play guitar and learn some new songs :)

See some of the concert at the following YouTube links:
- For Whom The Bell Tolls
- One
- The Unforgiven (Intro and Chorus only)
- Master of Puppets (Interlude and Ending only)
- Seek and Destroy

Linkin Park

One of the most anticipated album releases of 2010 was that of Linkin Park's album 'A Thousand Suns'. It was met with mixed reviews from most people I knew who were diehard fans, so when I received a special preorder for their Sydney show in November I passed up the opportunity. Luckily, they sold enough tickets for a second show and four of us decided to go along and see it.

It was a good thing we did! Linkin Park delivered a high energy show to rival their awesome performance from 2007! Good seats helped and their ability to make all of their songs sound great made for an enjoyable show including the following songs:

- What I've Done
- No More Sorrow - From The Inside
- Numb - The Radiance
- Fallout - The Catalyst
- In The End - Bleed It Out (A Place For My Head)
- New Divide - Faint - One Step Closer (Intro only)

Gorillaz

Eleonor had been wanting to see the Gorillaz perform live since we found out they would be having a concert in Sydney. However, we missed out on the initial 'good' seats and soon came to accept that we missed the boat. Unfortunately they would only run one show as well.

Luckily, one of her Facebook friends was selling some unwanted tickets so we were able to get back in the game and see the show - the day after we saw Linkin Park!

A completely different vibe but just as great to watch, Gorillaz allows you to appreciate their music by seeing exactly what's involved in putting it all together. From strings to percussion, brass and even a Syrian band shipped over from Demascus, the unique Gorillaz sound was recreated perfectly and assisted by performances from De La Soul and others.

I'm not as well versed on the Gorillaz discography as those of Metallica or Linkin Park, but still had an enjoyable time!

- 19-2000
- Stylo
- Dare
- Clint Eastwood - Don't Get Lost in Heaven - Demon Days

Best Concert of 2010

Since I'm in an award giving mood, of course there's an award for the best concert I attended.

Best Concert: Linkin Park - high energy, proved the doubters of the new album wrong.
Special mention to Metallica for the most anticipated concert of the year and delivering.

Best Movie of 2010

An additional shout-out to the movies that I thought were the best of 2010.

Best Movie: Inception. Floored me with how well this movie was done and how much it made you think. Another gem from Christopher Nolan!
Special mention to Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World. A movie I went to see with no idea what it was about and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely underrated.
Special mention to Alice in Wonderland 3D, for showing us how 3D movies can be done well, without copying Avatar.

2010 comes to an end tomorrow! Hopefully I'll get one more blog in before the end of the year!

Motorshow & AutoSalon 2010

2010-12-29T09:54:00.010+11:00

On October 16th Eleonor and I went with a friend of ours to the Sydney Motorshow. This was the first time I'd been since 2007 and the motorshow had become an event held every two years since 2008 (when Eleonor and I were in the UK). Needless to say I was quite excited to go back again after so long - but car manufacturers were obviously still reeling from the Global Financial Crisis, so not all of the marques were there including Ferrari/Fiat, BMW, Aston Martin and others.

That didn't matter though, there was still enough to feast your eyes on as Lamborghini, Jaguar and Mercedes-Benz put on decent enough displays to excite, there was even an appearance by a Koeniggseg!

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For me, this would probably be the last motorshow I'd see before I seriously consider replacing my current ride, so I was researching, examining and trying out different cars with that in mind.

Overall, it was a decent show, but the lack of some of the popular marques showed and there didn't seem to be too many people there as I remember from previous shows. No wonder they made it come once every two years!

The Auto Salon Final Battle returned to Sydney in November and I tagged along with my brother and his girlfriend. This show had a similar vibe to the motorshow - it didn't have the same excitement as the last show I visited in 2006! There didn't seem to be as many cars on display either - nor girls roaming around scantily clad to pose for photos with!

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The show was still interesting with mods of all shapes, sizes, colours and craziness all on show. From the tasteful to the ridiculously awful were out there for all to see. No standouts for me but at least the numbers of Hyundai Excels, old school Civics and Barinas were significantly less than previous outings!

With three shows in the last half of the year (including the Williamtown Airshow) I've decided to hand out some awards, so here's the first...

Best Show for 2010: Australian Defence Force Airshow, Williamtown Air Force Base
Runner-up: Sydney International Motorshow

Still wrapping up the events of the year so don't go away. Another blog will be coming real soon! I promise :)

Christmas 2010

2010-12-26T17:00:00.003+11:00

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

I hope you've all had a great time, spent it with family and friends, eaten lots and shared many laughs and smiles!

This year, Eleonor and I get to celebrate our first Christmas together - not just in our new house, but actually spend Christmas Day with each other! For each of the previous years we've been together, we've always dedicated Christmas Day to our respective families and then we've caught up on Boxing Day.

We had both our families come together for a Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve to share in the Christmas cheer and exchange some gifts. On Christmas Day we spent the morning together opening our gifts before heading out to dinner at my relatives place. Tomorrow we'll head out to meet up with Eleonor's family, continuing the Christmas fun :)

The year's drawing to a close, but I'm not done blogging for 2010 just yet! With a bit of time off I hope to recap on the past few months and offer my usual reflection of the year in the next few days!

Happy Holidays to you all!

Airshow 2010

2010-12-19T22:01:00.005+11:00

It's been four years since I last visited an Airshow, held at Richmond Air Force Base. Earlier this year in September, another Airshow was held at Williamtown Air Force Base to farewell the long serving RAAF F-111's and introduce the new Super Hornets.

Unlike Richmond, which is a measly 20 mins drive from home, Williamtown is a 2 hour trip north, but it was still worthwhile as this show offered a lot more flying displays and variety of aircraft.

Getting in was easy (getting out was a game of patience) and from virtually anywhere around the field you could view the flight displays, either from the carpark (where an entry fee wasn't technically required) through to where the static aircraft displays and information stands were on the opposite side.

Highlights included the many aircraft you could walk through including one of the RAAF's four C-17 Globemaster III transports as well as the HARS Museum's L-1049 Constellation and their Catalina. Flight displays included many formations and tributes to the frontline combat aircraft of the RAAF through the years, three F-111's in formation displaying the three wing configurations, the Hornets and the Roulettes, but in a fiery send off, they all seemed to pale in comparison to the impressive Dump 'n Burn maneuvers, including one impressive touch n' go n' burn from the retiring F-111's!

This airshow marked Eleonor's first time to experience one for herself and she appeared to be enjoying herself - particularly when her ears were blown away by the sheer sound of an F/A-18 at full speed!

Of course I enjoyed myself and look forward to the next event - perhaps I'll finally get down to Avalon in 2011?