Stargate Atlantis: The Complete Second Season (review)

This Sci Fi Channel series has always been a pale shadow of its progenitor, the long-running Stargate SG-1: heavy on action, short on thoughtfulness, it touches on wit, smarts, and true science fiction speculation only momentarily, and sometimes even seemingly accidentally. The adventures of a military, scientific, and exploratory team from modern Earth in a … more…

What’s New Scooby-Doo? Complete 1st Season (review)

As if the original Scooby-Doo show of the late 1960s and early 70s weren’t poor enough an example of pointless cartoonery — not to mention a blight on the collective childhood memory of Generation X — this 2002-3 revival demonstrates just how hollow pop-culture nostalgia can be. Shaggy and Scooby, along Velma, Daphne, and Fred, … more…

Strumpet City (review)

I thought I was up on everything Irish, but I’d never heard of this one, and maybe there’s a reason why. James Plunkett’s 1969 best-selling epic novel was turned into this made-for-Irish-TV miniseries in 1980, the first major production of Ireland’s RTE TV, but honestly, it’s really pretty dull, and dates itself with its slow-moving … more…

Hopeless Pictures (review)

No film is “too small or too depressing” for Hopeles(s) Pictures, the stuggling film studio headed up by Mel Wax (the voice of Michael McKean: For Your Consideration) — that he would bestow this moniker upon his company by conflating the names of his parent’s, Hope and Les, is emblematic of the dual driving force … more…

Ben 10: The Complete Season 1 (review)

Would you put a devastatingly powerful piece of alien technology into the hands of 10-year-old boy? Of course not, which is why that premise has made this Cartoon Network entry a hit among boys aged 6 to 11. Grade-schooler Ben Tennyson stumbles across the “Omnitrix” on a summer camping trip — don’t ask how; it … more…

Doctor Who: The Complete Second Series (review)

It’s hard for my dedicated, longtime Whovian heart to conceive, I who dreaded the reimagining of her beloved goofy British sci-fi TV show of the 70s and 80s, but this second series of the new Doctor Who is even more deeply thrilling than the first one, even as hard as it was to see the … more…