Sci Fi

Alien: Earth – Season 1 Review

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When I first heard about Alien: Earth, or rather just heard about an Alien TV series, I was sceptical to say the least… until I heard who was helming the show. Noah Hawley is the man behind both Fargo and Legion, two of my favourite TV shows in recent memory, so I instantly became excited, and now all this time later and it managed to meet and possibly even surpass my high expectations. Taking lots of great sci-fi ideas and philosophical subjects and then blending in plenty of Alien horror and gore alongside it was quite the winning combination, though I have to say the Xenomorphs were actually one of the least interesting things about the show, which is weird to say and not actually be upset about… Let’s take a look!

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Star Wars: Skeleton Crew Review

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To tell you the truth “Skeleton Crew” wasn’t something I was looking forward to, from its vague announcement to the first trailer and beyond nothing really clicked with me. I knew I’d give it a proper go because I love Star Wars and about half way through the series I realised that I was actually enjoying it, and then by the end it was up there with the higher end of live action Star Wars programming. It’s just pure fun, not bogged down in continuity (not that I don’t love continuity references…) or serious story telling (not that I also don’t love that either!) and instead just tells a good family adventure story. Let’s take a look!

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Alien: Romulus Review

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I’ve been looking forward to finally watching Alien: Romulus for a while now, so I treated myself to the 4K Blu-Ray over Christmas, and you know what? It lived up to my expectations, thanks to my expectations being that it would be a pretty by-the-numbers Alien movie but shot and acted really well. I’ll admit I didn’t see quite how much it “borrowed” elements from the original four films coming, especially in the ending, but I can’t say I didn’t have a good time watching it. Let’s take a look!

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Fallout – Season 1 Review

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After some good film efforts and an outstanding TV series in The Last of Us game adaptations are suddenly and frankly finally on the upswing and Fallout doesn’t do anything to stop the momentum, in fact it carries it forward showing that you can have an adaptation that’s amazingly faithful to the source material and have it be approachable to those completely unfamiliar with it. As one of “those” Fallout fans who got into the series thanks to Bethesda’s Fallout 3 and onwards I was constantly stunned at the level of detail the series had in recreating not just the look but the feel and storytelling of the games, as well as its comical over-violence. Basically, I loved the show, not just as a faithful adaptation but just as a great show in general! Let’s take a look.

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Red Dwarf – The Promised Land Review

David HoganLeave a comment

We’ve reached the end of our look at Red Dwarf (well, for now, there have been at least three other points in the show’s run that looked like the end that turned out not to be the case!) as we take a look at “The Promised Land”, a 90-ish minute special. Remember when in the Series XI and XII reviews I mentioned episodes that felt like Doug Naylor had one good idea and that one idea didn’t stretch enough for 30 minutes? Well, imagine that, but the one idea not stretching to 90. While it does have one or two good moments of comedy, the vast majority is once again just “okay”. Let’s take a deeper look anyway!

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3 Body Problem – Season 1 Review

David HoganLeave a comment

I was really hopeful when this series was announced as I was always interested in the three books the series is based on but they’re all massive, and given I only read for like 10-15 minutes before going to bed tackling a series like that would tie me up for most of the year. So while this series has changed a few things (including setting a lot of it in London rather than all of it in China and therefore the nationality of a lot of the characters) by the sounds of it this is a good adaptation. Well, at the very least, I can confirm it was really fun to watch with a great high-concept sci-fi story at its core. I had some issues with a lot of the central characters, but not enough to stop me from enjoying myself. Let’s take a look…

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Red Dwarf XII Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Red Dwarf XI and XII were recorded back to back and due to this it will come as no surprise that you can pretty much copy and paste my opening paragraph from the previous review and use it here. Series XII is a mix of fun ideas but averagey episodes that while can raise a smile it never hits anywhere near the heights of past series, but never hits the Series VIII lows either. Let’s take a look…

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Red Dwarf XI Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Red Dwarf XI and XII are an odd one, as they don’t have the “wow Red Dwarf is back!” feel of X and frankly don’t have the mostly good-to-great writing of X either, and while neither series falls as low as VIII they stand out so little that my rewatch for this review at times felt like I was watching them for the first time because I remembered so little about them. Well, with that said, let’s take a look at XI and see what, if anything, stands out!

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Dune – Part One Review

David HoganLeave a comment

I’ve always been interested in Dune, but attempts to get into the beefy novel in the past have failed and while I enjoyed the 80s cheese-fest adaptation it didn’t really feel like I’d experienced the all-time classic, so when this film came along and was said to be only half the book due to how accurate they aimed it to be I was excited, but also weary of potentially the second film not being made so put it in the back of my mind until Part Two was official… Then I sort of forgot about it, until now! So with Part Two about to hit cinemas, let’s take a look at the first half of the original Dune story, shall we?

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Red Dwarf X Review

David HoganLeave a comment

Red Dwarf X (because they counted the “Back to Earth” special as Series IX) is a true return to form for the series, with the cast reduced back to the classic four from Series III – VI, with six half hour episodes most of which are good to even great. The next few series sort of drop to middling (if memory serves) but X at the very least was, and as it turns out still is, a real treat to watch. Let’s take a deeper look!

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