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Doctor Who is back and for real this time, not like those Chris Chibnell seasons. Last night, "The Star Beast" premiered, the first of three 60th anniversary specials, all written by Russell T Davies, the man who brought the show back in 2005 and ran it for a few seasons. Also back is director Rachel Talalay from the 12th Doctor era (2014-2017) lending the special a narrative coherence not seen since that time. And, of course, David Tennant and Catherine Tate have returned to star and they're both fantastic as ever.

I enjoyed the special though I was reminded as much of Russell T Davies' weaknesses as of his strengths. "The Star Beast" is flattered by its contrast to the messy 13th Doctor era but, taken on its own, it ranks with only average Davies episodes. One thing it's definitely not is a good starting point for people unfamiliar with Doctor Who.

It begins with a long recap of Tennant's final season and an explanation of why Donna can't be allowed to see too much of the Doctor. Even this is not enough for the new viewer not to be bewildered by gags like the psychic paper or references to various aliens in doll form.



The dolls were made by Rose, Donna's daughter and the first properly transgender character on the show, played by Yasmin Finney. Finney is fine but Davies' treatment has a Guess Who's Coming to Dinner feel to it, kind of hokey and awkward. Donna and her mother talking about Rose in the kitchen felt like something from a PSA.

I liked how Rose had a shed where she goes to be alone and make dolls and it's where she stashes the alien Meep. But on that note, it seems like we should've gotten more reactions from Rose as revelations about the Meep started coming. Maybe the show didn't have time because it was focusing on the Doctor and Donna, but it felt like Rose was set up to be more of a main character.

I like how her name ended up being a clue that paid off, though. It's the kind of loose thread that in the Chibnall seasons would've just been a mistake or a leftover from a sloppy rewrite. In "The Star Beast", it's a hint that makes sense of a big payoff.

The new TARDIS interior is pretty great. It's perfect for the anniversary.

"The Star Beast" is available on Disney+ in most of the world and BBC's iPlayer in the UK. In the US, all previous episodes of the revived era are on Max, formerly HBOMax, and unrelated to Cinemax. The classic era of Doctor Who is available on BritBox. Is this all confusing enough for you?

X Sonnet #1793

The signal cords connect to make a web.
A linen sky conforms about the giant eye.
An empty farm awaits no Johnny Reb.
Construction starts as girls deliver pie.
Synthetic suits were suited best for sand.
As travel north's rerouted south, we turned.
Our answer song enlarged a little band.
Of burning hair, the spirits quickly learned.
Returning faces wear a single coat.
Beyond the age of thirty-five was ten.
Plus four would make the man another goat.
And senseless lunches craft another win.
Returning hearts were doubled twice from space.
A cart of clothes could fill the wooden case.

It was a cute little season finale for The Orville last night, possibly the series finale. It was a little odd following from a big, extravagant battle episode but I felt a little better about it when one character mentioned three months had passed.

This episode was written and directed by Seth MacFarlane and, despite the fact that it has a strong romantic comedy vibe to it, he faithfully maintains Isaac's emotionlessness throughout. Despite the fact that it's about him getting married to Claire.



Sometimes it almost feels like MacFarlane is playing a joke on the audience, especially during the wedding vows, when the best Isaac can still manage to say is that he prefers efficiency and seeks to avoid error. Claire says she believes, on some level, that Isaac really loves her. That's a lot of faith.



It was mainly a comedy episode, especially all the stuff with Bortus and Clyden. But, in addition to the surprisingly thoughtful stuff with Isaac, this episode also had a b-plot with the surprising return of Lysella (Giorgia Whigham). She's from a season one episode about a world driven mad by social media. Looks like she'll be the replacement hot party girl now that Charly's gone. This episode also featured a surprising return of season one's hot party girl, Halston Sage, at Isaac and Claire's wedding.



So it's nice to see MacFarlane stays on good terms with these young ladies, something that may bode well for his potential future relationship with Disney, and therefore a potential return of The Orville.

Lysella's story involves The Orville's version of the Prime Directive. The scenes where Kelly explains the nature of the Union confirms it is, essentially, Star Trek's Federation.

When she explained that reputation has replaced money in the Union, I wondered if maybe MacFarlane momentarily forgot that reputation is king on Lysella's world, too. Kelly needed to explain why the things in the Union were worthier of good or bad reputations. But those might have been tricky waters to navigate, which goes to show just how easy it is to slide into cancel culture.

I do hope Disney brings the show back. But more than anything, I'm hoping they took notes in the interest of improving their version of Star Wars.

Twitter Sonnet #1608

Surprising water waits in glowing glass.
Beneath the surface, ancient coins appear.
Competing kilts arrive in business class.
The scribble proved the map was insincere.
A dreaming woman plays the saxophone.
But ancient stones surpass the joys of sax.
Important time inscribed the fossil bone.
To ride the bull she paid a heavy tax.
A fragile glass supported yards of ore.
Recited spells were switched around the tube.
Reluctant phones would rarely ring for war.
A leading role designed a stagey cube.
Above, the palms resembled spiky clocks.
Another pack of guns has claimed the docks.

Last night's new Orville, "Twice in a Lifetime", had a pretty standard Star Trek time travel premise. But it was very sweet and some of the dialogue was surprisingly engrossing.

The Orville is attacked by the Kaylon again and I realised last night the show has managed to make the Kaylon feel truly threatening. As soon as their ships appeared I honestly felt concerned for the crew.



Our heroes escape by the skin of their teeth but Gordon (Scott Grimes) is thrown 400 years into the past, into our modern day Earth. When Ed (Seth MacFarlane) and Kelly (Adrianne Palicki) manage to get to him, he's been living there for ten years. He has a wife, Laura (Leighton Meester), the woman he met back in the season two episode "Lasting Impressions".

This leads to an argument between Scott, Ed, and Kelly where Ed and Kelly try to convince him to return to his own time while Gordon defends his right to live with his wife and kids. Scott Grimes is amazing in these scenes. Considering the danger posed to the timeline, Ed and Kelly are right that Gordon is being selfish but, still, you feel for the guy.



The Orville is available on Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ in other countries.

Last night's new Orville was written by Star Trek writers Brannon Braga and Andre Bormanis. So for a show that's normally modelled on Star Trek's '90s television tone, this one felt especially Star Trek. It also reminded me a lot of Prometheus, a great, underrated film that marked its tenth anniversary recently, as I was reminded by Caitlin R. Kiernan's blog. As an example of--what? Let's call it DNA horror--last night's Orville couldn't hope to compete with Prometheus but it was still pretty nice.

Like many episodes of TNG and DS9, it features a personal relationship plot that is tied to a previously separate Sci-Fi plot in the second act. In this case, we meet a new character, Claire's ex-husband. He wants to rekindle things but Claire's not up for it, a situation that's complicated when he's hit by some kind of alien spore that starts to rewrite his DNA.



The makeup is pretty nicely horrific while he's on the operating table but falls a bit into Power Rangers territory when he's up and running around. Still, I enjoyed the fight scene between two of the monsters and Talla. The choreography and effects weren't great but it was still fun watching her punch one of them and watching it snap back against the wall.



I remember when the first season of The Orville aired I found myself comparing it to Star Trek: Discovery. Now I'm comparing it to Obi-Wan Kenobi and one thing the makers of Orville understand that I wish Obi-Wan Kenobi's makers did is the importance of build-up. John Debney's lush, full orchestra score helps a lot as always. But also the Krill planting the idea of the strange space station being inhabited by demons and the slow approach by the shuttlecraft were all great. It would've been better if the alien station's set design looked a lot less like a set.



But okay. They can't be Prometheus on their budget. Still, it was a nice piece of television.

The Orville is available on Hulu and on Disney+ in various countries.

Last night's season finale of The Expanse was supposedly the series finale but it clearly wasn't meant to be. There are at least three unresolved subplots from the season, plus the overall series plot about the protomolecule doesn't feel done. Even as a season finale, it didn't have quite the impact of previous seasons.

Partly I wonder if it's the absence of actors like Thomas Jane or David Strathairn. And, of course, the absence of Cas Anvar continues to feel wrong, for the absence of his performance but more for the absence of his character, Alex. It's like if Scotty died in the second season of Star Trek and no-one made a big deal about it.

Spoilers after the screenshot.



There was a lot of awkward moral clean-up in this season, too, like Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) expressing regret about torturing the Belter in season one or Clarissa (Nadine Nicole) feeling sorry about killing the mechanic she worked with. Maybe they both do feel sorry about these things but their confessions came at awkward times and felt artificially injected.

The episode also did that thing Chris Chibnall has garnered criticism for doing on Doctor Who--showing the protagonist about to sacrifice herself only for a minor character to step in and do the sacrifice at the last minute. Drummer (Cara Gee) had that cool line, "Leave the Pella to me!" before she set up her suicide run only for someone else to do it. Bobbie (Frankie Adams) made like she was going to sacrifice herself to take out some gun defenses but her special suit ended up surviving a hail of bullets. That's a little more plausible, at least, but the moment felt deflated anyway.



And, of course, Filip managing to sneak off and survive felt like bullshit. The show would've been better off letting Naomi's (Dominique Tipper) grief remain legitimately earned. That's war.

Well, the action sequences were nice. But this show is definitely a long way from its heyday and, if this truly was the final episode, it's going out on a weak note.

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Although the absence of Alex continues to be a problem, I mostly enjoyed Friday's new episode of The Expanse.



I like the sub-culture of piracy among the Belters which borrows from romanticised visions of the golden age of piracy. The code of personal freedom extends to Drummer's (Cara Gee) crew being a dysfunctional polygamist family. Friday's episode saw a therefore tearful farewell to one of the members while they meet a pirate captain.



Meanwhile, Peaches (Nadine Nicole) is being slowly accepted among the Rocinante's crew. Even Holden (Steven Strait) calls her Peaches now. The scene where she and Bobbie (Frankie Adams) worked together was one of those cool, comic-bookish moments when two characters improvise coordinating their superpowers in a creative way. Holden chewing Peaches out for taking initiative didn't really make sense, though, which cut into the intention of the scene, which was to have Peaches glowing over the fact that Holden referred to her as a member of the crew.

I'm a little intrigued by the cattiness between Amos (Wes Chatham) and Bobbie. I can't remember if they had any kind of relationship before. I feel like they're being set up as lovers. I hope that doesn't mean they have to have a physical fight because there's no way the writers are going to be able to make it realistic (Bobbie would be required to win).

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Last night's finale of The Expanse, season five, was mostly disappointing, shifting from bad tonal choices to odd tonal choices. It did have bright spots, though, and even a disappointing episode of The Expanse is still better than the average TV series.

Spoilers after the screenshot



So we finally know how they handled the departure of Cas Anvar--they killed off Alex abruptly. Having a stroke after rescuing Naomi (Dominique Tipper) is a nice way of reminding the audience of the constant danger involved in the crew getting juiced up to handle g forces. Aside from that, though, it really didn't feel like the right time from a storytelling perspective. Alex had some good episodes at the beginning of the season that seemed like they were just the start of a new chapter for him.



In addition to that, the reactions of the rest of the crew, particularly Bobbie (Frankie Adams), who'd been teamed up with him all season, seemed peculiarly bland, which makes sense if the episode was shot before the makers of the show decided to edit Alex out. The banquet scene at the end feels particularly bizarre.



After all the bitterness and struggle of the season, now everyone's kicking back, getting their drunk on, and dressed in red and black. It felt like a dream sequence--part of me seriously expected it to be. Marco isn't even dead. Which is another disappointing thing, considering he was such a weak, uninteresting villain.



The two bright spots of the episode were Drummer (Cara Gee) and Naomi (Dominique Tipper). The drama between Drummer and her crew as they decide to take the painful steps of parting ways with Marco was great and the conclusion of Naomi's already gripping survival story was terrific.



I don't know the exact nature of the allegations against Anvar but I'm inclined to think he shouldn't have been fired unless he'd been convicted of a crime. But, oh, well, it's just a TV show. It kind of feels like the heart's gone out of it, anyway.

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Last time I wrote about The Expanse, I wondered why in the Belt Naomi would be attracted to Marco Inaros in the first place. Last night's new episode sort of gave me an answer, or at any rate it had a flashback to when they were young and in love and Filip was just born.



She looks so mature, not fifteen or sixteen, as I guess her age would have to be. I can't find the age of Jasai Chase Owens, who plays Filip most of the time, anywhere on the internet but considering he has a history of aiding in terrorist attacks I figure he has to be at least seventeen by this point. Dominique Tipper, who plays Naomi, is listed as being 32 or 33 (weird seeing such imprecision about someone in a major TV series). I guess Naomi's meant to be older than Tipper or maybe Belters have accelerated pregnancies.



Still, I don't find Marco (Keon Alexander) or Filip very interesting but I like the story of Naomi's struggle. Tipper's performance makes the scenes really work when she's talking about nearly committing suicide. And I liked how the episode came back to that story in the climax.

I was sorry not to see Amos or Avasarala this week but an episode focused on Naomi is always a good idea.

The Expanse is available on Amazon Prime.

Whoever heard of a virus that kills the old but spares the young? Anyone who remembers "Miri", a first season episode of Star Trek, aired in October, 1966, in which the crew beam down to an Earth-like planet inhabited only by children. I've always liked how this episode condensed and recontextualised the psychological differences between young and old and the resulting conflicts between them. Now, of course, the story takes on some new resonance.

Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), McCoy (DeForest Kelley), and Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) find empty, ravaged streets on the Earth-like world before they're attacked by a deranged young man who promptly dies in front of them.



Finding a laboratory, Spock and McCoy uncover the history of the place and how, long ago, its inhabitants tried to genetically engineer a way to extend their lifespans. They succeeded in making something that causes the body to age much more slowly--about a month's worth of aging for every century--but once puberty is reached the pathogen reacts by tearing its host apart, physically and psychologically.



The mental deterioration starts to affect the Enterprise crew and they become increasingly irrational (except for Spock) even as they struggle to develop a vaccine. It also makes it difficult for them to work with the children who inhabit the ruined streets.



They look like kids but they're really hundreds of years old. But they also behave like children, turning life into an endless series of games and supporting their mutual belief that what's happening to the old can never affect them. In a way, they're like the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, but crueller and pettier. They haven't spent their time building anything beautiful or useful; they play hide-and-seek and "bang bang", wasting time away with idle pleasures.



But inevitably they do grow up and are affected by the frailties and hazards of age as much as any adult. Miri (Kim Darby) is now a young woman and of course she starts to fall in love with Kirk. But when the disease starts to affect them, she has the horrifying realisation that he and the others are truly "grups", the kids' word for grown-ups. This word shows that, like racists, they're avoiding distressing sympathy by seeing the sufferers as an inferior species. So tightly do they cling to this that Kirk has trouble convincing Miri of the truth even though she's seen with her own eyes some of her playmates age and die.



I like how gentle Kirk is with Miri, and with Rand, whose anxiety is to do with the loss of her beauty. As the disease disfigures her leg, the advantage of the short skirted uniform for the women of Starfleet becomes a curse. She says she always tried to get Kirk to notice her legs, now they draw notice for the wrong reason. It's an interesting moment that reveals how the uniform facilitates the dating culture in Starfleet and how cruelly the virus thus prematurely deprives someone of a sign of attractive, youthful vitality.



But of course, this isn't the end for the crew of the Enterprise who finally manage to convince the kids to help them. For this we have to credit Kirk's diplomacy and not his fists, despite what's been said of the relative strengths of Kirk and Picard. He goes among the children and reasons with them respectfully despite their childish insults. Obviously, that is the mature and only path to cooperation.

Twitter Sonnet #1397

Observant air remains beyond the wall.
Selected hairs complete the thinning skull.
Reversing leaves includes a leafy fall.
A tapping told of cups beyond the hull.
The bigger shirt becomes the bigger man.
Alerted horses cook the special brew.
A bouncing cat redeems the static plan.
The richer green was closer yet to blue.
The absent voice acquires help in space.
With metal shoes, the egg ascends to law.
The good and true assort the station face.
The claws retire 'neath the fluffy paw.
The science built a smaller kind of kid.
The lines were spliced with timely aid of fid.

Two years after Farscape abruptly concluded its fourth and final season, a pair of TV movies aired, the result of fervent demands from disappointed fans. The miniseries is essentially a condensed version of what the showrunners had planned for an unmade fifth season. It bears many of the problems in terms of story and character that cropped up in season four but it's still great to revisit the wonderful locations and effects and to enjoy the performances of a terrific ensemble cast.



The Peacekeeper Wars, Part I

We meet up with Dominar Rygel (Jonathan Hardy) showing off his heretofore unseen swimming prowess as he gobbles up pieces of a "crystalised" Crichton (Ben Browder) and Aeryn (Claudia Black) off the ocean floor. So, of course, the pair weren't really killed. This solution to what had looked like a permanent problem results in the amusing development of Rygel's body taking custody of Aeryn's foetus.



This is discovered by none other than Grunchlk (Hugh Keays-Byrne), one of the more memorable characters from the series' history who makes his first appearance since the beginning of the third season. No explanation is given for his surviving what looked like death back in season three but we can forgive this oversight when we have the man delivering lines like, "If there was a little passenger before, it ain't aboard the train no more."



Less forgivable are some of the ongoing problems resulting from pushes to get characters from point A to B without much concern for how they do so. Why does it make sense for Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) to abandon his command of a Peacekeeper armada to travel as a refugee aboard Moya again just because Crichton is alive again? Crichton was alive when Scorpius last left Moya, after all.

When D'Argo (Anthony Simcoe) talks briefly to Aeryn about her baby during a gunfight, she tells him that Crichton wants the baby so bad that she's trying to want it too for his sake. It seems kind of late in the game to give her character this motive. It might also put a complicating light on the torture she underwent in the previous season if the show ever bothered to portray any lasting psychological effects from the experience in Aeryn's behaviour or in the way others treat her.

The plot about the war between Scarrans and Peacekeepers continues to get hazier, especially when a deus ex machina McGuffin is introduced in the form of a sentient race capable of influencing warring factions into pursuing peace.



Jool (Tammy MacIntosh is briefly returned in order to wear an unexplained cave girl outfit and sexily straddle and smooch Crichton--which is nice though one wonders what happened to her yen for D'Argo. She doesn't last long in any case, being obliterated with the Eidelons by a "precaution" missile courtesy of the Scarrans.

Stark (Paul Goddard) and the last survivor of the Eidelons (Ron Haddrick) confer about the psychology of Scarrans as though this factors into the peace negotiation technique but it still seems more like mind control as a disappointing shortcut for the development of relationships. Which is too bad because the Scarrans remain intriguing with fantastic makeup and costumes.



Even if their makeup, and Scorpius', looks oddly more artificial than it did in season four. I'm not sure if it's the makeup or something to do with the cameras but their faces look a bit more like masks, thicker and shinier.



I find I like Sikozu's (Raelee Hill) costume redesign a lot more now than I did the first time I watched the miniseries.



I was happy she had at least one moment talking about her relationship with Scorpius that explores her tendency to see other beings only in terms of whether they're inferior or superior.

The apparent deaths of Chiana (Gigi Edgley) and D'Argo at the hands of Ahkna (Francesca Buller) is a nice, surprising plot development though their escape is attained by the disappointingly improbable means of D'Argo somehow pulling both himself and Chiana unharmed from the explosion of his craft and floating in space, keeping Chiana alive with his own breath.



Crichton's decision to bring Staleek (Duncan Young) into the wormhole feels a little like a repeat of Crichton bringing Scorpius into a wormhole but the confrontation between Einstein (John Bach) and the Emperor is kind of neat. I liked that the situation actually seemed to compel the emperor to see reason, a much more effective development than the quick fix of the Eidelons.

. . .

Farscape is available now on Amazon Prime.

This entry is part of a series I'm writing on Farscape for the show's 20th anniversary. My previous reviews can be found here (episodes are in the order intended by the show's creators rather than the broadcast order):

Season One:

Episode 1: Pilot
Episode 2: I, E.T.
Episode 3: Exodus from Genesis
Episode 4: Throne for a Loss
Episode 5: Back and Back and Back to the Future
Episode 6: Thank God It's Friday Again
Episode 7: PK Tech Girl
Episode 8: That Old Black Magic
Episode 9: DNA Mad Scientist
Episode 10: They've Got a Secret
Episode 11: Till the Blood Runs Clear
Episode 12: Rhapsody in Blue
Episode 13: The Flax
Episode 14: Jeremiah Crichton
Episode 15: Durka Returns
Episode 16: A Human Reaction
Episode 17: Through the Looking Glass
Episode 18: A Bug's Life
Episode 19: Nerve
Episode 20: The Hidden Memory
Episode 21: Bone to be Wild
Episode 22: Family Ties

Season Two:

Episode 1: Mind the Baby
Episode 2: Vitas Mortis
Episode 3: Taking the Stone
Episode 4: Crackers Don't Matter
Episode 5: Picture If You Will
Episode 6: The Way We Weren't
Episode 7: Home on the Remains
Episode 8: Dream a Little Dream
Episode 9: Out of Their Minds
Episode 10: My Three Crichtons
Episode 11: Look at the Princess, Part I: A Kiss is But a Kiss
Episode 12: Look at the Princess, Part II: I Do, I Think
Episode 13: Look at the Princess, Part III: The Maltese Crichton
Episode 14: Beware of Dog
Episode 15: Won't Get Fooled Again
Episode 16: The Locket
Episode 17: The Ugly Truth
Episode 18: A Clockwork Nebari
Episode 19: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part I: A Not So Simple Plan
Episode 20: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part II: With Friends Like These . . .
Episode 21: Liars, Guns, and Money, Part III: Plan B
Episode 22: Die Me, Dichotomy

Season Three:

Episode 1: Season of Death
Episode 2: Suns and Lovers
Episode 3: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part I: Would'a, Could'a, Should'a
Episode 4: Self-Inflicted Wounds, Part II: Wait for the Wheel
Episode 5: . . . Different Destinations
Episode 6: Eat Me
Episode 7: Thanks for Sharing
Episode 8: Green Eyed Monster
Episode 9: Losing Time
Episode 10: Relativity
Episode 11: Incubator
Episode 12: Meltdown
Episode 13: Scratch 'n Sniff
Episode 14: Infinite Possibilities, Part I: Daedalus Demands
Episode 15: Infinite Possibilities, Part II: Icarus Abides
Episode 16: Revenging Angel
Episode 17: The Choice
Episode 18: Fractures
Episode 19: I-Yensch, You-Yensch
Episode 20: Into the Lion's Den, Part I: Lambs to the Slaughter
Episode 21: Into the Lion's Den, Part II: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
Episode 22: A Dog with Two Bones

Season Four

Episode 1: Crichton Kicks
Episode 2: What was Lost, Part I: Sacrifice
Episode 3: What was Lost, Part II: Resurrection
Episode 4: Lava's a Many Splendoured Thing
Episode 5: Promises
Episode 6: Natural Election
Episode 7: John Quixote
Episode 8: I Shrink Therefore I Am
Episode 9: A Prefect Murder
Episode 10: Coup by Clam
Episode 11: Unrealised Reality
Episode 12: Kansas
Episode 13: Terra Firma
Episode 14: Twice Shy
Episode 15: Mental as Anything
Episode 16: Bringing Home the Beacon
Episode 17: A Constellation of Doubt
Episode 18: Prayer
Episode 19: We're So Screwed: Fetal Attraction
Episode 20: We're So Screwed, Part II: Hot to Katratzi
Episode 21: We're So Screwed, Part III: La Bomba
Episode 22: Bad Timing