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Or double down and make a Trouble movie?

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Uncle Retrospective, njerry, Todd

Every episode going forward they can add a blurb saying “this story takes place when Doctor Donna was out of town on another adventure!”

I finally got around to watching season one (ha!) of Doctor Who. No idea who they think they’re fooling by billing it as season one but never mind.

Silly life things got in the way of me watching it as it aired – as well as a greatly diminished interest in the show after recent years – but it was actually quite good to be able to blast through it in just over a week, watching one episode a day. I’m not sure if it would have held my interest as much had I kept having to wait for a week for the next episode.

Some thoughts on each of the episodes…

Spoilers, of course…

Space Babies – seems like most people didn’t care for this but I found it to be a perfectly fine bit of light Who. If rewatching, make a drinking game out of it and take a shot each time Gatwa excitedly yells “space babies!” You will be in trouble. 5/10.

The Devil’s Chord – terrific performance by Jinx Monsoon as Maestro. Surprised that it took this long to get the Beatles into a Doctor Who story (unless they were already in one that I don’t know about). Ringo and George got screwed over in terms of their screen time. I was rather expecting the Beatles to burst into the final battle to save the day, kicking the door down and launching into Helter Skelter. Sure, the timeline doesn’t work for that song but the Doctor could have warned them to maybe think twice about using it. 7/10.

Boom – basically a bottle episode on top of a land mine. They tried hard to make it work but the tension is non-existent when you’re well aware that the new Doctor is not going to get blown up. 6/10.

73 Yards – look, I like a bit of Donnie Darko as much as anyone else who was a disaffected youth in the early 2000s, but I was mostly distracted with just how cunty everyone in that Welsh pub was. Five pounds for a half-pint of coke!  Davies must have had a bad experience in Wales at some point. These sorts of time loop storylines only ever end in a “if you squint hard enough it might just about start to sort of make sense” manner. As with Donnie Darko you can only hope to pull it off with sufficient style to do so with feeling, which I think this episode did. 8/10.

It was at this point that it became clear how little the Doctor has actually done and how clumsy he has been. He stood on the fairy circle in Wales and had nothing to do with anything that unfolded from that. He stood on the land mine and was saved by Private ChatGPT.  He only survived Maestro because of Ruby’s distraction. He ran away from the boogeyman. Not exactly the pro-active type. And the crying! Oh, so much crying.

Dot & Bubble – there’s not much for the Doctor to do here once again, this time outsourcing his standard role to poor Ricky September. Still, Gatwa acted the absolute shit out of his big scene at the end. I did catch onto the racist undertones as the episode progressed but that ending still hit pretty damn hard. Nice to see a twist to the formula here as well, with the supposed protagonist of the story turning out to be a total piece of crap as events unfold. 9/10.

Rogue – this one didn’t work. The Doctor going from just meeting someone to seeing his sort-of fiance sort-of die in front of him in one single 45 minute episode was too much to make work. Admittedly, Captain Jack II’s final words being “find me” and then the Doctor in the next scene being all “hmm, nah” was quite funny.  Also not exactly the Doctor’s finest hour, ditching Ruby alone with the danger while he’s busy flirting. And I have no clue what Ruby’s plan was meant to be by going along with the wedding at the end. And them switching the contents of the trap at the end didn’t make any sense. And that one alien looked like a really shit Sesame Street character. On the plus side, if you need another drinking game idea, take a shot every time someone says “cosplay”. You’ll be sober for the first half but then you’ll wind up urgently requiring medical attention. 4/10.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday – it was nothing but set up for the next episode, so pretty hard to judge on its own merits. There was a whole lot of stalling for most of it but the way they cranked up the tension in the final ten minutes was highly effective. Plus we got the epic line “do you ever dream of being an ambulance?”. 6/10.

Empire of Death – aww, crap. Every time, even when I should know better, I get sucked into these big important mystery arcs and, every time, the big grand finale lets me down. Like ordering a nice warm bowl of cream of tomato soup and getting a bowl of stale piss. Permit me to rant.

So we’re told all season long that Ruby is super-duper important and mysterious and even Maestro is afraid of her and it all turns out to be nothing more than Sutekh being after a bit of gossip? If he’s that easily distracted by vague mysteries that go absolutely nowhere they could have given him a boxset of Lost and bought themselves plenty of time.

We go through the big anticlimax with Ruby and then we’re straight into trying to hook us for the next episode by teasing the big important mystery arc for Mrs Flood? Seriously, Russell?

Sutekh just chilling on the Tardis would have worked better if it had been a result of the salt that was spilled at the edge of the universe and the Doctor’s concern about that. Him having been there for decades is just daft. Can just imagine him curling up into a ball, trying to get out of the way of Captain Jack while he’s hanging onto the Tardis as well.

Sutekh killing those people in the TV studio with a touch was pretty damn sinister. But as soon as he started wiping out UNIT with a dust cloud it was clear that everything was going to wind up getting undone. The obsession with making things as grandiose as possible just winds up doing harm to the story.

An awful lot of time in this episode (the whole season, really) was given over to promoting the idea that if you’re adopted you just need to find your birth mother and everything will be okay. For a show that’s ostensibly aimed at younger viewers that seems, frankly, irresponsible.

The Doctor getting so emotional about having to say goodbye to Ruby, even though he doesn’t have to and we already know she’ll be back… and, really, Ruby taught him all about family? Forgot all about him being the son-in-law of Amy and Rory, I guess.

Speaking of family-ish folk, what was the point of Rose being there? When all of UNIT is unloading onto Sutekh she’s just in the background swiping on her tablet.

UNIT giving a machine-gun segway to a 13 year-old seems questionable. There was an amusing moment with him, at least. We see him taking a bite of pizza in the celebrations at the end, we cut to the Doctor for a couple of lines of dialogue, we cut back to him and that slice is GONE. Hungry work being a genius.

The Doctor taking his dog for a walk in the time vortex at the end to reverse the polarity of death was fun and all – although I guess he brought back Skaro but not Gallifrey? Interesting.

The Doctor getting all worked up about Sutekh turning him into a murderer when he had already skewered a goblin at Christmas…

So there’s a 15 year-old girl in an abusive relationship who just had a baby in secret and she decides to dress up in a giant gothic black cloak to give the baby away? That would be way more conspicuous in 2004 than just doing it in her regular clothes. Like they said, this isn’t Dickens.

And then she points at a street sign, unaware of anyone being around to see her, and that’s meant to be how Ruby got her name? That makes no sense. I had assumed that the street name was an obvious name choice that was given to her by someone in the church.

Ruby thinks her birth mother saved her life by doing what she did. What she did was abandon a newborn outside in the dark, in the snow, in the middle of winter. There are safer choices, I’m sure.

I could go on for a while here so I better just stop.

At least I enjoyed about half of the episodes!

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Dave, Martin Smith, Uncle Retrospective

Absolutely. Multiverse fatigue has greatly diminished my interest in the MCU already. Things escalated from the more personal stakes in Phase 1 to “we have to save the world” in the Avengers to “we have to save the universe” in Infinity War to “we have to save the multiverse and every variant of everyone is out there”.

I wonder if this casting was always part of the plan, for Secret Wars at least, but they decided to just announce it ahead of time after Kang got canned. It would have been a hell of a reveal in a post credits scene at the end of Kang Dynasty.

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Todd

I’m reasonably confident that Secret Wars will have RDJ playing some Tony Stark variant whilst also voicing Doom under the mask.

Trying to imagine a Justice League movie in the 80s in which Adam West played Darkseid and now that’s all I want.

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Sean Robinson, Todd, Ben, Dave

We need to move the Avengers franchise forward!

Proceeds to hire the directors from last decade and the star from the decade prior…

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Todd

I saw the first two episodes of Discovery season 5.

I had been racking my brain beforehand trying to remember where things were left in season 4. Turns out that since then we’ve had two seasons of Picard, two seasons of Strange New Worlds and two seasons of Lower Decks! Crazy.

I’ve been rather irritated with this show in the past but was pleasantly surprised with just how fun these two episodes were. The show plays so much better with Michael being in charge of the ship already, rather than wasting so much time on her having to convince her captain to go along with her plan. Shame they didn’t get to this set up sooner.

Minor spoilers…

So the season is just going to be an extended version of The Chase from TNG? I still prefer the episodic approach to Star Trek but, hey, fair enough. That story was broad and crazy enough to suit Discovery pretty well. But who exactly was filming the footage from the TNG episode the characters used here?

Saru survived the “HE WAS JUST ONE DAY FROM RETIREMENT!” trope, good for him.

Is Fred dead? I guess it doesn’t matter too much as the show is ending but the actor did a fantastic job as a Soong synth and I’d like to see him again somewhere.

The new number one looks to be a welcome addition, in all his “Jonathan Banks in Breaking Bad” surliness. Sometimes all you need to quickly solve an emergency problem is someone to yell “hey, smart people, do something smart!”

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lorcan_nagle

Still so weird to me that penguins have issues with bats.

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Todd, Christian

JRCarter wrote:

Aaron Pierre exits Marvel’s Blade movie: ‘As the project evolved, I’m no longer part of that’

Yes, the project evolved from being a film that is getting made to a total shit show.

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JRCarter, Todd

I always thought Jon Hamm would have been good for that role. Still, better Liam Neeson than Ed Helms as had been the plan a few years ago.

It looks like the reboot is being written by some of the Family Guy writers, though. Hard to imagine it being, y’know, funny.

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Arjan Dirkse

So, y’all see that Snyder cut?

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Todd

Shang-Chi 2: Where Are You?

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Todd, Ben

“Tonight, on a very special episode of Moonwalker…”

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Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

I don’t know where they’re going with this but the promo art screams ‘interior design show.’

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Todd

There are scenes set in Peru so I’m holding out hope it is actually part of the Paddington Cinematic Universe.

Bob’s not excited by them.

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Todd

To elaborate on Echo… and, yes, spoilers ahead…

1/ The powers. They’re completely different from what the character has in the comics. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but the show is terribly unclear about what her actual powers are. At least in the source material the powers follow a certain comic-booky logic from her deafness, much like Daredevil’s from his blindness. Now she can, what, do a Vulcan mind-meld? See dead ancestors? Perhaps heal a bird? It just didn’t work.

2/ Kingpin. Vincent D’Onofrio is tremendous, of course. But the MCU Kingpin continues to get diluted from the Netflix Kingpin. In the Daredevil show he was a terrifying shadow that loomed large over everything, even though he never did anything himself. Now he’s some sort of mix between Juggernaut and Otis from the Donner Superman movies. His grand plan here is to go ask Maya to come back to him, even though the last time they saw each other she tried to kill him. If she says yes, great, she can become his heir (even though the last time they saw each other she tried to kill him). If she says no, well, he’ll send a Welshman with a bazooka to blow up her home town. Oh, and apparently his operations run some sort of illicit railroad that delivers its wares to a top-secret warehouse with FISK SHIPPING on the side of the building. And this is the guy the FBI couldn’t pin anything on? Dumbass.

3/ Maya. What a dick! The show frames her as being a total innocent and Fisk as being the villain. That’s a distorted view to take given that she has personally committed countless murders and other crimes. It can’t all be blamed on her upbringing. In fact, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that her nature was always like this (her bird-killing efforts; her lack of empathy with the ice cream vendor). Despite this, she takes no accountability for anything and the show just gives her hugs instead. And, for crying out loud, Kingpin didn’t kill her father, Hawkeye did! She never displays any resentment towards her father for anything either, despite him repeatedly choosing a life of crime for decades, even after it cost him his wife’s life and isolated them from that side of the family. Kingpin isn’t responsible for any of that. There could be a very interesting show here that explores all of this and puts in the work to earn a sense of redemption for Maya, yet this show doesn’t even try and instead just shoehorns in the supernatural nonsense instead. Oh, and her grand plan is to pick on Fisk’s operations, even though she thinks he’s dead, by targeting his railway activity specifically from her hometown, not anywhere else along the route, even though it will inevitably put her friends and family in danger. Dick.

4/ Nobody even invited the grandpa to the family dinner at the end! What a shower of bastards.

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Todd

So, Echo…

What the fuck was that?

Finally managed to see The Marvels and can conclusively say that it is better than Secret Invasion. Just a perfectly acceptable superhero flick that’s really not worth any significant negative or positive critiques. It just exists.

I never saw the Ms Marvel show so I was a bit unclear about her background, powers, etc. I don’t think the movie did a particularly good job of explaining such things. Then again, I also saw the first Captain Marvel movie and all of Wandavision and I was still unclear about what Monica’s whole deal was here. The movie didn’t go a good job of explaining her either.

Nonetheless, Kamala and her family were absolutely the highlights of the movie. Honestly, the movie would have been better if it was just about Kamala and her family suddenly having to deal with fighting aliens in space alongside Nick Fury and an army of cats. The whole thing grinds to a halt whenever it stops to deal with Carol or Monica.

And the ending! Good grief. Carol’s been dealing with the Kree home world for how many years and at no point did she figure out what she could do to help it? It made her look like she was either a total dumbass or that she just DGAF.

For whatever it is worth, I don’t think the bad box office performance is attributed to all those ‘interesting’ incel type folk out there. They were all around for the first movie and it still did a billion dollars. They were all around for Barbie last year and that still did huge business. I think this movie just suffered due to the perfect storm of the audience not caring about the lead character, the MCU and even superhero movies overall lacking momentum, more and more people viewing these things as Disney+ fodder and the strikes impacting the promotion of it. The movie is mid-tier Marvel, on par with the Ant-Man or Dr Strange movies, and if it had come out a few years earlier would have done perfectly acceptable numbers, I’m sure.

Then the mid-credits scene… certainly lends credence to the rumour that Secret Wars is going to be primarily based in the Fox Universe.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle, Uncle Retrospective, njerry

I’m already furious.

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Dave, Dan, Todd, Christian

People will start reading novels, composing handwritten letters to loved ones, going outside to smell flowers, donating their time to charity work and so on. It shall herald a social utopia renaissance for us all.

Until X-Men is announced.

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Dave, Christian, Todd

Nobody fixed the damn ceiling!

You know at some point someone, perhaps Anita Dobson next door, is going to say gravity instead of mavity and set off all sorts of alarm bells.

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lorcan_nagle

In retrospect it is baffling that Marvel ever cast the guy, certainly not in what was meant to be such an important role. Surely in this post-MeToo world they do background checks on their hires?

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Todd, Ben

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Dave, Todd

Martin Smith wrote:

X-Men 2, sorry X2: X-Men United (can you believe they thought that was a good name?)

I remember the general consensus at the time was that this was bigger and better than the first film – which how I felt – and while it’s certainly bigger, hitting 2hr 10m, I don’t think it is better, really.

Part of that is that it doesn’t use that extra run time to explore any of its characters in extra depth, it just bulks out the section at Alkali Lake beyond all common sense. (I was about ten minutes into that bit, checked how long was left and was astonished that there was over 40 minutes still to go). Various characters exist here only to be walking powers really – Storm is in a lot of the film but not much to do beyond use her powers and talk to Nightcrawler; Nightcrawler has a bit of personality but a facade of a character arc; Cyclops is completely wasted; Pyro’s arc doesn’t really amount to much; Rogue takes a backseat to Iceman, for some reason. And then there’s Jean, who still doesn’t really have much chemistry or plausible romance with Wolverine and gets to do a weak, sketched in Phoenix plot thread.

And I think that last bit is one of the problems with this film twenty years(!) on: how weakly it adapts its source material. The first film is quite tentative about doing that and works well for it. This one is full of geek-bait references (Stryker’s PC has a list of mutants from the comics in its files etc) that I’ll admit at the time I thought was really cool. But the way it actually adapts the source material is quite bland.

Take Lady Deathstrike, who is changed from a vengeful cyborg ninja into just a mostly silent femme-Wolverine. Ok, that fight scene is pretty cool, but the character is lacking. Same with one of the half dozen kidnapped students being an Asian girl in a yellow coat. At the time I was all “OMG, it’s Jubilee!” but now it just feels pointless. She’s a glorified extra who does nothing and the coat is literally all there is to characterise her as anything, let alone Jubilee.

Having Jean sacrifice herself doesn’t really work here because – despite a lot of screen time – she has little agency in the plot beyond an accessory to Wolverine. In 2003, the hints of Phoenix Force stuff gave that a pass, but now (and not even taking into account how much that flopped in the next film) it just doesn’t work, it feels limp and half-hearted. If they’d paired her up with Cyclops rather than Storm, they’d have been able to actually bolster both that and the love triangle plot thread by having Cyclops notice and talk to her about her expanding powers more, but as it is, you just get that one line early on.

And why the hell does she have to be outside the plane to levitate it anyway? And if Stryker has his knock off Cerebro and Xavier to kill all the mutants, why does he raid the school for mutant kids to hold? You could argue for bargaining collateral, but the mind control juice obviates that entirely.

All that said, there are decent bits. The cast are generally good, even if they’re largely not given much to work with. The action scenes are all well shot (from a time before shaky cam became the norm). The jokes are better. But I don’t think it really hangs together well as a story and as an adaptation of its source material.

Good review of X2, thanks.

I agree with a lot of this. It probably won’t happen but I would love it if the MCU X-Men is actually a Disney+ TV show rather than a movie series. It would allow for sufficient time to flesh out the many, many characters that they have and their relationships with one another. Cramming something like the Phoenix story into one or two movies simply doesn’t work all that well but if it played out over a couple of TV seasons then it could. Throw out some standalone Wolverine action movies if something is needed for the cinema release schedule but keep the soap opera stuff where it will be most effective.

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Dave, Ben

So we’ve got Peter Parker Doctor off living the quiet life with a red-headed woman (and, uh, her husband) while Miles Morales Doctor zips off for more adventures? Marvelous.

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Rocket, Dan, Todd, Ben, lorcan_nagle

George, I’m sorry I called you a wanker.

Yeah, that was a fun ep. A relief to see something that wasn’t laden with convoluted, mythology-busting continuity baggage and instead just let the charisma of the two leads loose in a tight, “what’s in the box” mystery.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Step 1 – make Blade look cool

Step 2 – let Blade kick ass

Step 3 – end credits

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Uncle Retrospective, JRCarter, Todd, Ben

Random thought but what on earth is taking so long with the Blade movie? Really, how hard can it be to come up with a movie about a good vampire who beats the crap out of bad vampires? Is it trying to get the thing to tie into the MCU that is proving so difficult? Ali’s going to be pushing 52 by the time this thing turns up.

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JRCarter, Todd

Wait, women can let things go?

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Dan, Todd

Welcome to Wrexham, season two.

Still fun but there’s a reason why nobody prefers to watch Rocky 2 over Rocky.

JRCarter wrote:

Pedro Pascal Eyed To Play Reed Richards In Marvel Studios’ ‘Fantastic Four’

That’s an odd way to spell Glenn Howerton.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Nice of them to reduce superhero movie lengths from three hours to three minutes.

Sure, it could work. I suspect it would be better served as a TV show, though. There’s an awful lot of character work to delve into if looking at the Miller/Bendis/Brubaker material and a lot more time to do so in a TV season than a movie. They can also lean into the Matt Murdock, attorney-at-law side of things if they want to get more episodic.

Keeping the budgets down is definitely a good point, though. It eases the pressure a lot if they’re not blowing $200m on things like Quantumania or Secret Invasion, or nearly $300m on the Marvels.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

They do need to just hone in on what people actually want to see and prioritise those above all the C-list content.

Deadpool and Ryan Reynolds remain over (probably more than ever after the Wrexham show), so try to ride that for at least one more movie.

I suspect there’s strong interest in seeing what a rebooted X-Men entails, so let’s crack on with it. There are so many characters here that it could generate all sorts of spin-offs if they get the casting right.

Spider-Man is always a hit so bring him back and then carry it on with live-action Miles Morales.

Even without Boseman there’s interest in Wakanda so let’s get back there.

The Guardians are a hit and certainly worth another shot, even without Gunn or Pratt.

The F4 could go either way but they’re the one major Marvel name yet to be included so worth trying out.

Shang-Chi did well enough to merit a sequel.

Beyond that, just hold off and see where these hot properties lead.

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Todd, Dave

Hard to imagine things getting back on track anytime soon looking at the line-up of things to come…

Echo – a forgettable side character from a largely forgotten Disney+ show (of which she was the worst part)

Deadpool 3 – fully expect this one to be a huge hit but it basically just fell in their lap

Agatha – spin-off from a Disney+ show from three years ago based around a villain (suspect this will be an enjoyable show but really hard to see it contributing anything significant to the bigger picture)

Captain America – sequel to an underwhelming Disney+ show and undergoing urgent reshoots

Daredevil – by their own admission they already fucked this one up

Fantastic Four – it already failed as a movie franchise twice in the past twenty years and they’ve already had to replace the director and writer

Thunderbolts – gives the impression of being a bunch of jobbers in a tame Suicide Squad knock-off

Blade – announced in 2019 and just maybe will be out at the end of 2025

Avengers: Kang Dynasty – built around a problematic, possibly criminal actor and a character that has failed to hold audience interest

Ironheart, Armor Wars, Wonder Man, Vision Quest, Nova, Spider-Man 4, Shang-Chi 2, any follow-ups on the Hulks, the Eternals, Moon Knight, Wakanda… who the hell knows.

 

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Todd, Dave

I won’t be seeing the Marvels until whenever it turns up on Disney+, so maybe things change somewhat in that, but the impression I get is that the MCU is lumbering slowly towards some sort of reboot, likely based around the X-Men, once it gets done with Kang and Secret Wars… yet that’s not going to be until 2027 at the earliest, almost 20 years since the first Iron Man movie.

I hope if they’re taking some time to re-evaluate things then they can fast track to a conclusion for this multiversal gibberish and start with a relatively clean slate.

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Todd, Ben, Dave

The whole thing is just a mess now.

They set up Pugh Black Widow in 2021 and she won’t be around until, what, Thunderbolts in 2025? What about Steinfeld Hawkeye?

Shang-Chi was well received, also back in 2021, and there’s no word on when there will be a sequel. No follow up on what the Ten Rings are acting as a beacon for or what the organisation is up to either.

Are we ever going to get back to the point about Sharon Carter being a double agent selling government secrets?

The Eternals. Fuck off.

Where’s Harry Styles?

The Venom symbiote is on the loose in the MCU but no idea on if/when that will be followed up on, or the Holland Spider-Man movies in general.

Doctor Strange went to the dark dimension to prevent and incursion… and?

What’s up with the grumpy guy from Ted Lasso as Hercules?

What’s going on with Thor and his daughter?

What’s going on with T’Challa Junior?

Hulk has a son now, any chance of elaborating on that at any point?

There’s a whole underwater kingdom ruled by Namor, are we ever going to get back to that?

They seem to have spent a lot of time in phases four and five just setting things up without any particular intention of going back to them. Seems even less likely that they will now that they’re cutting back on the level of output. That’s all well and good but once the realisation dawns that half of this stuff is pointless then the whole thing starts to feel that way.

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Todd, Dave

Weird show. Congrats to Marvel for finally making a show in which the final episode was the best of the series. It does play out like they could have foregone the previous five episodes and just had this as the finale proper to season one, though.

Huge credit to the music by Natalie Holt, which really elevated the grand finale.

Kang remains as intimidating a big bad as Mayor Humdinger from Paw Patrol. Even without the issues with the actor I would be reconsidering basing so much of the upcoming main event Avengers stuff around this character.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

World premiere in Wrexham, of course.

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Todd

So Rob Grant is working on a Red Dwarf prequel novel and TV show, about young Rimmer and Lister first becoming bunkmates and getting into trouble during shore leave on Titan.

Remember, no matter what happens, it will be better than the American pilot episode.

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Todd, lorcan_nagle

Oh, come on. All that timey wimey stuff going on and the big cliffhanger is Loki saying “it’s about Who”?

No need to be a tease, Disney.

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Ben

Saw the first two episodes of Frasier: The Next Generation. They did exceed my expectations, yet my expectations were exceedingly low. It does suffer in the inevitable comparison to the original show, one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. It certainly lacks the cosy glow of that show, not to mention the lightning-in-a-bottle that it had captured in terms of the cast and writing. This show is fine but, minus the nostalgia and the references to the original show, it is just a generic, mildly amusing laugh track sitcom. The David character is particularly irksome, faced with the impossible task of being the new Niles but instead coming across as a discount Sheldon. On the other hand, it warms the heart to see Nicholas Lyndhurst in action again. I suspect the double act of him and Grammer will be the best part of the show going forward.

Getting caught up on SNW season 2 and I did not realise that the finale was going to end on a cliffhanger. Needless to say my reaction to that “to be continued” sign was far from friendly. Especially as we have no vague idea of when it will be continued now! Fantastic show, though. Easily the most fun I’ve had watching Star Trek this century.

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Rocket, Uncle Retrospective

The show really did make Nick Fury out to be a total bellend. To recap what he actually did here:

– return to Earth from whatever the hell he’s doing in space, which I think they still haven’t explained after all these years

– lead Maria Hill to her death

– lead Talos to his death

– go see the wife that he’s apparently abandoned for years for reasons that, again, were never explained

– refuses to seek help from Dr Strange or whatever other Avengers remain, seemingly out of ego alone

– leaves a batch of Avengers super-DNA out there

– gives an angry young Skrull woman all the powers ever and leaves her to do whatever she pleases

– traumatises the President so much that all the Skrulls wind up on a legal kill list

– leaves

Oh, and those secret service agents he shot weren’t Skrulls were they? So add a bunch of unnecessary murders to the list.

He’s gone full-on Dick Fury.

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Christian, Todd

Going to need someone to dub Benny Hill music on those scenes of Skrhodey wheeling POTUS around in a hospital bed.

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Christian, Todd, Ian Smith, Ben

Nice. Not seen Lower Decks but I did very much enjoy the crossover. Spock was quite the scene stealer. The LD ensign inadvertently disrupting Spock’s relationship with the nurse may have preserved the Spock that is needed to go on to save the galaxy, without smiling, so good on him.

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lorcan_nagle

Just now realising that the acronym for the most recent episode was TOS. Cheeky.

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Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle

Another enjoyable episode this week. Seems like they could very easily keep the show going for longer by flashing forward into the TOS era.

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Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle

Maybe the show can redeem itself in the finale. Like a flashback to Fury’s wife watching him reading a book in the sunlight by their kitchen window, only it turns out his book is a porno mag.

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Martin Smith, Christian, Todd, Sean Robinson

The US President being wheeled into A&E with just a couple of bodyguards and a crazed civilian with a gun for company was the chef’s kiss of stupidity here.

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Todd

Step 2 – ?

Step 3 – profit!

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Todd, Dave

SNW2 is just good plain fun, especially the most recent sitcomy episode. Spock trying to beat the crap out of Kirk for daring to leave a dirty plate on his table was tremendous.

Gotta be noted, however, that Spock was a pretty shit fiance.

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Uncle Retrospective

Maybe we can just let Hollywood be for a little bit. It had a good run. Just stop and give people a chance to catch up on their archives, revisit old favourites and check out some of that sweet, sweet international fare. Bump everyone up to Vancouver and let them build a newer, less problematic version of the thing.

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Chris-S, Todd, JRCarter, DavidM

I’ve been trying to just roll with it and enjoy SLJ but the shoot-out in the most recent episode was just plain irritating.

The US President is traveling to a tense meeting with the Russian President over an issue that could easily lead to World War 3 and all he gets for protection is a bog-standard armoured SUV convoy with a few motorbikes? If anything like that were to happen the most sophisticated security detail imaginable would be following his every move, including the skies above him. Any random helicopters heading his way would be dealt with instantly and lethally, not allowed to just swing on by and start firing.

This is also a universe in which Stark tech, nano tech, alien tech and all sorts of other tech is readily available for those in the know or with access to it. Someone at that level would most certainly have it incorporated into their security detail. As soon as they came under fire those cars should have been flying away, deployed some impenetrable armour around themselves or who knows what else, not just sit there and take it because that’s all that they could do in the real world.

Situations like this also just raise the question of where the superheroes are. This isn’t some off-world, other-dimensional situation, or something relatively low-stakes like in She-Hulk. It can’t just be explained away with “the Avengers are off-planet in this month’s issue.” If the US government faced a situation as perilous as this they would surely at least plan for someone like Falcon Cap or Bucky to follow along in secret just in case things went south. It shouldn’t be that hard if Fury and his mate can just pull on up in their car and start firing.

Meanwhile, Gravik’s big plan of making it look like the Russians did it somehow also includes showing off his Super Skrull powers in full view of everyone.

And what exactly is stopping Skrhodey from releasing the video footage he has of Skrull Fury killing Maria Hill?

The wheels are coming off here.

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Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

I think his plan is to instigate a nuclear war that will kill off the humans, since the Skrulls are not affected by radiation in the same way. How they would cope with being unable to grow food or feel sunlight or check their social media has not been explained.

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Todd

Maybe it is for the best if these movies are giant clusterfucks. If not, what the hell do we have left to talk about?

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Todd, DavidM

The show is nothing special but I am amused that the secret cabal of Skrulls running the world consists of two prime ministers, the head of NATO and a Fox News presenter.

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Christian, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Well, time to get Evanescence back on the playlist I suppose.

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Indiana Jones and the Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain

Indiana Jones and the Father of the Bride

Indiana Jones and the Transformers: The Movie

Indiana Jones and the Little Mermaid

Indiana Jones and the Spy Who Loved Me

It was a fun episode. I hope each crew member gets their own alternate time line secret adventure with Kirk and no-one ever talks about them.

Notice that she left a loaded gun in the room with Him before she leapt? So then they found Him with a lethal weapon alone in a facility full of dead guards and no explanation for what happened, which leads to Him being treated like a dangerous killer, which leads to Him becoming hateful, which leads to Him plotting revenge, which leads to Him becoming a dangerous killer? New head canon.

Kirk must have hustled a hell of a lot of chess to afford that fancy pants hotel room.

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Uncle Retrospective, Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle

Maybe things would have gone better if they had piggy backed Indiana Jones with another existing property.

Indiana Jones and the Fast and the Furious

Indiana Jones and the Royal Tenenbaums

Indiana Jones and the Bridges of Madison County

Indiana Jones and the Perks of Being a Wallflower

Indiana Jones and the Birdcage

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Uncle Retrospective, DavidM, Todd, lorcan_nagle

Looks like Indiana Jones shat the bed at the box office. Wouldn’t have been such a mess if not for that insane budget. I suppose it gives the accountants something to sink their teeth into.

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Todd

Well, it is a secret.

A perfectly acceptable second episode. Could have been better without everything that wasn’t Don Cheadle and SLJ having a heated debate or Olivia Colman politely torturing some fool.

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Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle

Paramount plus will be showing the Quantum Leap reboot in the UK (finally!) on 13th July.

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Dave

And there was so much potential in the gimmick of “tired old man keeps whipping everything”.

Corn Sweat is a fitting name for Clark Kent, I suppose.

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DavidM, Todd

$300 MILLION DOLLAR BUDGET.

What the hell, people.

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Todd

I wonder if Paramount+ would have been better off if it was just a Star Trek subscription service. All the old shows, new shows, documentaries, podcasts, shorts, etc, $5-10 a month. License all the other tat to other streaming services instead.

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lorcan_nagle

Yeah, the show will succeed or fail based on how much Sam Jackson gets to Sam Jackson things. The best part of the first episode was the interrogation scene. He was one take away from yelling “DOES MARCELLUS WALLACE LOOK LIKE A SKRULL?”

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Dave, Todd, Martin Smith

I was distracted with trying to figure out how clothing works when the Skrulls change shape. If it is just part of them then shouldn’t the clothing disappear when they die as they turn back to their Skrull form? How does the mass displacement work if one goes from being a hefty barfly man to a little girl? If they really want to spy on people can’t they just hide themselves as a pigeon or a cupboard or whatnot?

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

My hope would be for the performance of this and other recent DC movies, as well as the seemingly increased ambivalence towards the MCU, to lead to Gunn embracing the chance to start completely fresh and forget about the whole shared universe thing. Just give us entertaining movies for each separate brand of character, branch out with spin-offs from whichever ones prove to be the most popular, and don’t worry about the clunky crossover crap that just doesn’t really work all that well.

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Chris-S, Todd, Ben

Apparently the Flash is shaping up for a lower opening weekend box office than Black Adam, which is, frankly, hilarious.

Just kill it with fire and move on, DC.

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Chris-S, Todd

Maybe it is just me but the prospect of dragging out this multiverse nonsense until 2027 sounds utterly exhausting.

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Chris-S, Todd, Uncle Retrospective

Ewoks.

IASIP season 16 on 7th June!

An R-rated movie about an animal lover? Hmm.

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lorcan_nagle, Todd

Caught up on Ant Man: Quantumania now. I’d give it its full title but it seems redundant given that Wasp is, at best, maybe the fifth most important character in the movie.

I guess my expectations had been lowered by the negative word of mouth but I actually wound up enjoying it more than I thought I would. However, my enjoyment was very much from a “so bad it’s good” perspective. Clunky dialogue, steaming dumps of exposition, hammy acting, cheesy attempts at humour, green screen so unrelenting even Attack of the Clones would say “hold on, now”, a story that took forever to figure out where it was going and nothing made sense at any point but overall it was so unrelentingly stupid and weird that it held my attention.

To be fair, Majors was pretty decent as Kang. Unfortunately, his scenes feel rather icky to watch at this point, especially the ones where he is berating Janet or Cassie. The whole multiverse thing affords Marvel an easy out if they go down the recasting route.

The multiverse is also one of the main factors in me not really caring much about this post-Endgame stuff. It is just too vague and incomprehensible to buy into. The first MCU films were about things like Tony Stark being humbled, learning from his mistakes and taking out the bad guy to preserve his father’s legacy, or Bruce Banner trying to find a cure for his condition so he could be with the woman he loved. Now things have been escalated to saving trillions of lives across every single universe and if one character we like happens to die then, whatever, grab another from the multiverse just like Loki. There’s nothing relatable to ground any of this in any longer. It is just green screen for storylines.

The first two seasons of this show were like being force fed cold, damp broccoli. Then this third season is like getting to fix yourself a giant sundae. Is it really necessary? No, but it’s goddamn ice cream and it’s glorious.

Worf absolutely stole every scene he had this season. I hope he returns in whatever the Legacy show is going to be.

Seven captaining a crew that was, briefly, assimilated by the Borg is a neat idea. And she has her own Ensign Crusher on the bridge. Not sure that the former Titan really looks like a flagship vessel. Still, G being the seventh letter of the alphabet is a nice touch.

Did they ever mention what was going on with Riker and Troi’s other, non-dead child? Or Picard’s relationship with Romulan Mrs Doyle?

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Chris-S, Vikram

Driving Instructors Association.

They also have the X-Men lying in wait. With the weight of the world right now, leaning back into them as an allegory for oppressed minorities could help them recapture that cultural zeitgeist factor.

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Ben, Dave

The Eternals thank you for your interest.

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Christian

I hope it is all nothing too.

If they did have to change plans because of this I don’t know that it would be much of an issue. Kang is not exactly getting over huge as a big bad. They’ve still got F4 in the works so could theoretically pivot to Doom without messing around too much.

I dunno, I rather like that the universe is about to be saved because of one android’s love for his cat.

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Uncle Retrospective, Sean Robinson, lorcan_nagle, Ben

Yeah, the early episodes are quite weak. I can’t say the show gets great but it does get pretty good for a light sci-fi. Episode 7 was the first one that had a notable upturn in quality and felt like it could have been from the original show (which certainly had its share of clunkers too). I think that was the first they produced since getting picked up for a whole season, so they likely started fine tuning things around then.

Agreed it was great to see Ernie Hudson again.

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Sean Robinson, Chris-S

Saw the finale of season one of the new Quantum Leap. Overall, it wound up being just okay. It starts off very shoddy, steadily improves but winds up succumbing to the same flaw as most time travel stories in that nothing can actually be explained in a way that holds up to scrutiny. That renders the season-long story arc focusing on the Project characters and the mystery they’re trying to solve rather unsatisfying. However, when the show just focuses on the Leap of the week it can definitely work. Without spoiling anything the episodes on the Indian restaurant, the country singer, the priest, the boxer and the transgender kid were really enjoyable episodic TV (some episodes aim for more elaborate stakes and the show again struggles to handle the excess). I hope the show focuses more on that side of things for season two. Kudos also to Raymond Lee for his performance as Ben, the leaper. He’s a perfect blank slate, which is precisely what the role calls for.

Surprised that this has still not been picked up for broadcast in the UK by any service yet. Firestick + VPN + Peacock certainly helps.

“They made us to be the perfect spies, completely untraceable.”

Five minutes later…

“I’ve discovered a way to track them.”

Not to mention Picard’s big plan. “Hey, you know that psychotic changeling who has been chasing my son across the galaxy? Let’s invite her and her goons on board! Oh, and we have the unhinged android who hates me as well? Super!”

Yeah, not a great episode this week.

 

Apparently Ryan Coogler is working on a reboot of the X-Files. Not sure about that one as the show was very much tied to the ’90s and driven by the Anderson/Duchovny chemistry, neither of which are easy to replicate.

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Chris-S

Brent Spiner just flicking between all those characters with little more than a head tilt was a terrific bit of acting.

50-50 odds that’s actually Troi, I guess.

“Sour mead.” “Superior Klingon technology.” Worf continues to steal the show.

Apparently Kirk’s body was also in the vault, alongside notes that say he was “critically injured” during Generations and the body retrieved for “Project Phoenix”. Um, what?

It seems inevitable that the finale will require Geordi releasing the old, non-interlinked ships to join the battle. Worf and Raffi on the Defiant, Seven and Jack on Voyager, Shaw with the cloaked Titan and Picard leading everyone else on the Enterprise.

Another good episode, although I’m dubious about the Stranger Things direction they’re going in with Jack. Let it play out and see how it goes, I guess.

Worf’s half assed acting for his fake death was amusing. All part of the fun.

I’d take a Titan show that was all about Shaw trying to have a nice quiet day while other, more famous Trek characters keeping dumping shit on his lap.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle, Al-x

So what vaguely funky old rock song will Superman dance to?  Psycho Killer?

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JRCarter, Uncle Retrospective, Todd

Guessing Michelle Yeoh’s price tag for a Section 31 show just shot way up.

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective, Ben, Al-x

I believe it was something along the lines of Rob wanting them to wear red hats and Doug wanting them to wear blue hats, which was rather tragic as the hats were actually green.

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Chris-S, Uncle Retrospective, lorcan_nagle, Dave

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Uncle Retrospective, Todd, lorcan_nagle

I thought that was Hulk Hogan?

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Todd

Thinking about it and isn’t it a bit odd that Beverly would name her secret lovechild with Picard after her dead husband, who Picard was good friends with and was indirectly responsible for his death?  Can the Titan do psych evaluations?

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Todd, Uncle Retrospective

Perhaps a British version named Heckchap would do the trick.

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DavidM, Dave, Todd