TV Review: Stargate SG-1 (1997-2007)

Original Run: July 27th, 1997 – March 13th, 2007
Created by: Brad Wright, Jonathan Glassner
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Based on: Stargate by Roland Emmerich, Dean Devlin
Music by: Joel Goldsmith
Cast: Richard Dean Anderson, Michael Shanks, Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge, Don S. Davis, Corin Nemec, Ben Browder, Beau Bridges, Claudia Black, Ronny Cox, Lexa Doig, Robert Picardo, Morena Baccarin, John de Lancie, Louis Gossett Jr.

Double Secret Productions, Gekko Film Corp., Kawoosh! Productions IX, MGM Television, Sony Pictures Television, Showtime (1997-2002), Sci-Fi Channel (2002-2007), 214 Episodes, 44 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

Nearly a quarter of a century later, I finally gave Stargate SG-1 a shot after a friend of mine was recently talking to me about it and over the years, others have tried to sell me on its greatness. However, 214 hour long episodes plus two movies and three spinoff series is a lot of stuff to watch if I happened to actually be into this.

Due to my schedule and the immensity of this franchise, I looked up an episode guide that pointed out which episodes were the key ones and those are what I watched with the intention of going back and watching the ones I missed, if I ended up liking this show. It’s a method I’ve used for other long-running shows and I like doing it that way.

I also liked the original 1994 Stargate movie, which this show is a direct sequel to. The two main male characters on this show are the same characters played by Kurt Russell and James Spader in that film. However, Kurt Russell is recast with Richard Dean Anderson, MacGyver himself, and James Spader is recast with Michael Shanks, who would go on to do a ton of sci-fi television work.

The cast is then rounded out by three new characters played by Amanda Tapping, Christopher Judge and Don S. Davis. These five core characters are all pretty damn great and their chemistry is on the same level as the casts of the first three Star Trek shows, especially as they grow in these roles over ten seasons and beyond.

The two-part story that kicked off this show was a worthy successor to the 1994 film and from there, this show branched out in ways I couldn’t have expected. As it rolls on, we see new threats, new alien species, many of whom are allies, and the show itself evolves and changes every couple of seasons. However, it never gets too far away from what it started out as. Basically, it stays really grounded and it’s pretty consistent throughout in spite of major shifts to the formula. With that, it doesn’t become formulaic and redundant and reinvents itself just enough to stay interesting over its 214 episodes.

My only really issue, at first, was that some of the special effects look bad or cheesy. This is due to the limitations on television sci-fi in the ’90s but your mind does adjust to it within a few episodes and you don’t really notice it too much.

Besides, these characters and these stories are so good that the special effects are really secondary and not that important.

In the end, I’m glad that I gave this a shot. I haven’t seen every episode but I plan to work my way through them all, as I have time. Additionally, I’d like to watch the key episodes of the other series that were born out of this one.

Rating: 7.75/10

Film Review: Village of the Giants (1965)

Release Date: October 20th, 1965
Directed by: Bert I. Gordon
Written by: Bert I. Gordon, Alan Caillou
Based on: The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth by H.G. Wells
Music by: Jack Nitzsche, The Beau Brummels
Cast: Tommy Kirk, Johnny Crawford, Beau Bridges, Joy Harmon, Robert Random, Tisha Sterling, Toni Basil, Ron Howard

Berkeley Productions, Embassy Pictures, Joseph E. Levine Productions, 81 Minutes

Review:

“I’m hungry too. What’s for breakfast?” – Elsa, “Sheriff, on toast.” – Fred

A movie with Ron Howard and Beau Bridges in it that is based off of an H.G. Wells story? Well, at least it sounds good on paper.

This movie was featured in an early Mike Nelson episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I guess this was one of the few that I have never seen because I would have remembered this bizarre train wreck of pure, unadulterated awesomeness.

These juvenile delinquents that are overly delinquently and dance like cracked out schmucks every chance they get, come into contact with this chemical that makes living things grow to much larger proportions.

However, before we even get a town ravaged by kaiju sized teen douches, we get to see ducks the size of rhinos dancing around in a nightclub. We also get to see one get barbecued, which was kind of sad because a one ton party duck isn’t just something you skewer, set on fire and cover in Sweet Baby Ray’s! These dumb kids could have paraded that duck around from town to town getting lots of money from curious rednecks and baffled farm folk.

This film is terrible but it’s that extraordinary kind of terrible where it has just enough bizarre kookiness to make it pretty unique and quite entertaining. I can’t realistically give this even an average rating but I was charmed by the absurdity of it and for the fact that it is a fun dumb movie. It’s nowhere near as bad as most of the dreck you’ll see on MST3K and if I were to make a list of best movies to watch that were featured by MST3K, this would be high up on that list.

Village of the Giants is stupid but its a stupid you can laugh at and enjoy.

Rating: 4/10

TV Review: Bloodline (2015-2017)

Original Run: March 20th, 2015 – May 26th, 2017
Created by: Todd A. Kessler, Glenn Kessler, Daniel Zelman
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Tony Morales, Edward Rogers, James S. Levine
Cast: Kyle Chandler, Ben Mendelsohn, Linda Cardellini, Norbert Leo Butz, Jacinda Barrett, Jamie McShane, Enrique Murciano, Sam Shepard, Sissy Spacek, Katie Finneran, John Leguizamo, Andrea Riseborough, Chloë Sevigny, David Zayas, Beau Bridges, Mario Van Peebles, Mia Kirshner

KZK Productions, Sony Pictures Television, Netflix, 33 Episodes, 48-68 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

This is a show that came highly recommended by several people. I put it off until now but picked it up just in time to binge through it and catch the final season as it debuted.

Bloodline is a show that is really up and down. It starts out a bit slow but builds towards something strong, compelling and powerful as the first season comes to an end.

The second season isn’t as good as the first and it is tough to sit through some of it, as it loses its pacing and doesn’t really seem all that interesting in resolving anything or bringing any sort of balance to the characters’ situations or them spiraling crazily out of control.

The third season suffers from multiple personality disorder. A big portion of the season deals with a trial where you expect there to be some real closure but there is none. Then the season ends and the show ends with still… no friggin’ closure.

Bloodline had the tagline of “We’re not bad people, but we did a bad thing.” In reality, they are all horrible people. There are a few good and innocent characters but they are all dragged down into the murky shit that is the lives and personalities of the main characters. The Rayburns are an awful family of awful people who are willing to do anything to anyone in an effort to play up appearances because the Rayburn name is apparently the equivalent to royalty in the Florida Keys.

The only really good character is the only one that actually starts out as a criminal. Danny, played by Ben Mendelsohn (most famous for being the baddie in Star Wars: Rogue One), is a great and dynamic character. You are never sure of what his motivations are but there is something redeeming about him, even if he does despicable things. By the end of the show, however, he is the least despicable member of his shitty family of fuck ups.

The big problem with the show is that you don’t like anyone and it makes it hard to care about any of them. Truthfully, I wanted to see justice for everything that they did but it never comes. The show ends in the most unsatisfying way and all the innocent people effected by these self-important assholes are left with nothing.

The show also ends on a cliffhanger but it is a weak cliffhanger because even though you are left guessing, after three seasons you know that truth and justice won’t prevail. With the Rayburns, self-preservation is their disease, even though all their attempts at it have disastrous results that ultimately ruin their lives anyway. This is a long drawn out story where no one learns anything or really evolves other than getting worse and worse.

To be fair, the acting is stellar and the cinematography is amazing as hell. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make a show all on its own. The writing dissolves as this show rolls on past its first season. Frankly, its a story that seems to be designed to torture the viewer, unless the viewer doesn’t have a moral compass or a burning desire to see justice prevail in the end.

It sounds like I’m coming down hard on the show but I didn’t hate it. I was mostly just annoyed by it and in the end, it all seemed pointless.

Rating: 7.5/10