I liked Half-Life a lot. It was the first time we'd gotten these cinematic scripted sequences in FPSs. And they were done very very well. But that was back in the good ol days of 1998. Now Doom 3 and Call of Duty 4 foist that heavily scripted stuff on us every goddamn time you cross a room or street corner and I just shake my fist and yell "Damn you Valve! Damn you for condemning me to this scripted hell!"

What I want from an FPS now is not what I wanted from an FPS in 1998. The key is to move away from the Call of Duty 4 model. Which isn't gonna happen if Modern Warfare 2 sells as many copies as its predecessor. What's the CoD 4 model? Sticking you on a straight and narrow path with scripted sequences. Every. Five. Fucking. Steps.

The King is dead. Long Live the King.

Now we'll never find out if Duke Nukem Forever was worth 13 years of blood, sweat, and toil. I'm a sad panda now. It's like a part of my childhood has died.

Just as Star Trek gets released too. With the resurrection of one dead franchise, another passes into the ashes of history. What are the odds that some other dev team like Raven or Epic just buys up the property and spits out a Duke game in a year's time? I'd find that quite amusing. Kind of a "That's how shit gets done, folks!" statement. There's always been a strong pro-stripper demographic out there that hasn't been properly catered to in about 13 years.

Ya know something? This news is probably as shocking as it seems because... they've been at it for so long. I think if they had given up the ghost after 4 or 5 years and just canceled the game, nobody would have batted an eye. But to keep at the damn thing for over a dozen years was uh, a sort of ridiculous perseverance in the face of... laziness, engine changes, and procrastination that everybody just thought they had to finish sometime, they'd gone too far to go back. And they sorta kinda seemed to be close to finishing the game. There were some vague promos going around in 08 so it seemed more likely then before. Not quite a demo or a playtime vid, but... there *was* something there. It was enough to keep hope alive, darn it.

Rest in peace dear friend. No gaming joke will ever surpass the glory that was Duke Nukem Forever.

Just came back from Star Trek.

It's... very different from previous Trek films. There's some things that stay the same, and a lot that changes. Definitely not gonna replace Wrath of Khan, heh.

The CGI's amazing, of course. That's kinda the most obvious at-a-glance difference. See, this is really hard. My head is swimming with all the crazy stuff that I just saw, but... most of it's gonna be spoilers.

I will say, you should prepare yourself for a lot, I mean a lot of lens flare in this film. It was some sort of cinematic look they were going for, but sometimes the amount of it was just overwhelming. Like, a character will look out of a window, and the sun just pours through the window and completely blots out the screen with yellow flare for a good two to three seconds. That was just kinda "Ok, that's a bit much, thanks."

Yea... the timeline really changes...

They fucking DESTROY VULCAN, WITH SIX BILLION VULCANS! AND AMANDA GREYSON! HOLY SHIT.

Which is mind boggling, but I didn't really feel the impact because you're aware of the time travel, so... maybe it's just me, but I felt myself not reacting to the change when it happened because I was sure that they would use the time travel again at the climax to undo what had happened. It seemed really telegraphed. But then they don't do that at all, which was cool. But by then, the emotional impact of Vulcan being gone was uh, gone. It was just a CGI effect. Did anyone else feel this way?

They do show the Kobayashi Maru, which was really really funny. Maybe a bit too over the top, depending on your mood.

I mean, Kirk's fucking eating a goddamn apple in the scene... that's just insanely over the top. It does work in a comedic manner, but if you've envisioned it happening a different way since 1982 when Wrath of Khan came out, obviously this is gonna take some getting used to.

Just all throughout the film, there are these callbacks to the old series that we know and love. That was really cute and worked for me. Scotty actually saying "I'm giving it all I've got, Capn!" and uh, Spock uttering "When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

We even find out how McCoy got the nickname "Bones."

Not sure how I feel about the new guy playing Spock. It's just really hard to see Spock being played this way. It's much more emotional then we're used to, so that was a shock. And of course, because we actually have Leonard Nimoy playing him too. And the new guy's just got a huge nose. There'd be these closeups of Kirk and Spock eyeing each other, and I'd just focus on how Spock's nose is so much bigger then Kirk's normal sized one. It was just weird.

And yea, it's definitely been a while since I've watched TOS episodes. But I think it's also that when we see Spock being emotional before in TOS, it was usually emotional in a friendly, camaraderie sort of way. Here, he's mostly emotional in an angry way.

Right now I'm looking up who played the Orion girl, cause she was fucking hot. You know how Kirk is...

But uh... that's just minor. Now, there is one relationship in this film that was uh... completely out of nowhere, nothing in canon to support it.

Spock and Uhura? Holy shit! That totally came out of left field for me. Just uh... WTF. I don't think I was the only one in my audience to react that way, either. Not saying that it's a terrible decision though. Just a shocker cause we'd never seen this before in TOS. We'll have to see how the sequels handle this relationship. Still, right now... it's just a huge seismic change.

Nero's not a great villain. Kinda wasted in the story, I think. Just uh... not very memorable.

And his great villainous ship turns out to be just a mining ship. Which doesn't really jive with it being this sinister spidery juggernaut. Seriously, it dwarfs every other ship... I'd estimate it's somewhere from a half to one Borg Cubes in size. No idea why a mining ship needs to be that big. And the inside of it kinda reminded me a little of V'ger. Just a really crazy layout. Again, not sure why a mining ship would look like that.

Oh, know what I didn't expect? New Chekov's accent got almost unbearably comical to listen to. It's strange, cause I've never blinked at old Chekov's thick accent. But hearing it coming out of this young new actor was really grating. I actually burst out laughing when he first talked. Simon Pegg's Scotty was great, he was funny in that same sorta Jimmy Doohan manner back in the day. Just a joy in every scene. McCoy too, Karl Urban really seemed to have researched Kelly's acting mannerisms. Don't believe he ever said "He's dead, Jim" though.

Unfortunately, I've gotta report that this film suffers from the same horrible flaw as Deep Space Nine's big battle scenes... we never see any visible shields. Maybe I missed em, but from what I could see, there were never any shield impact effects. Ships just get torn to pieces from the get-go by torpedoes. I mean, yes, Nero's ship is from the future and is obviously much more powerful then the Starfleet ships. But still, I would've expected to see at least one shield impact before they failed. Hey, if I'm wrong on this... feel free to correct me with screenshots. Prove me wrong, I beg you.

The other strange technical oddity is that transporters can work through shields now. Either that or nobody ever has shields up. One or the other. Just kinda bizarre. Everybody's just transporting to where they need to be.

And wtf was with Kirk and Scott transporting to the Enterprise from the ice planet? I mean, I get that the story needed to send them there, but... you mean to tell me that transporters can now reach ships that have departed a planet at high warp for a couple hours? Really? That's some crazy magic Spock Prime worked on that transporter pad. I just... yea, that really didn't make any sense to me. Transporters have a certain range. And yes, having a guy from the future can certainly improve that range. But it really took me out of the movie when you have a transporter that has that kind of crazy range. Not to mention that like I said before, they seemed to be able to transport through the Enterprise's shields. Or the Enterprise was running with shields down, which would be kinda strange given they were facing a dangerous Romulan that had just destroyed Vulcan.

Annnnnd as far as the aesthetics, I really didn't like the new Engineering. It was filmed in a brewery, and that's pretty much what it looks like, a brewery. A lot of pipes going everywhere and huge vats that I imagine contained beer. Just a complete departure from the central warp core room that they introduced in the films and TNG. Which hey, what can I say... that worked for me. Also, the ship apparently has several small warp cores, instead of one long tube that runs from the top to the bottom of the secondary hull. The bridge of course is the same general layout, just all decorated Apple-y white. So it was much more familiar and I didn't have a problem with it.

Oooooh, they did change the phasers... that was pretty noticeable. They're still about the same shape and appearance to the Star Trek 5-6 model, but now they actually switch the barrel when you change it from kill to stun. So it'll have a red barrel for kill, and then flip to a blue one for stun. I dunno... probably a concession to appeal more to casual people?

There was something very strange with the USS Kelvin, the Akula-like ship. At the beginning of the movie, it's getting trashed pretty badly. They have to evacuate the entire ship. So, that top part is the secondary hull, with the shuttlebay. Now... this ship launches about 10-15 shuttles out of there with all the survivors. This is supposed to be a thrilling escape scene, yet... all I could think was how the hell did that secondary hull have room for all of those shuttles? Did the shuttlebay take up the entire hull? Where was their Engineering? It was so strange seeing 15 shuttles coming out of that dinky little secondary hull. Was there some sort of mass shifting pocket universe embedded in the Kelvin to store shuttles?

So yea, still pretty overwhelmed by the experience. Go see it, it's a good time at the movies.

So uh, reached Peak 15, this underground laboratory that was working on creepy crawly alien thingys. Of course, they all break out and shit hits the fan so you've got these scientists and some security forces holed up with barricades and every once in a while one of the alien bugs will pop out of a grate and try to eat em. Maybe it's just me, but I've got the feeling they were trying to make an Aliens homage with this area. And of course, there's great little touches like how the soldiers have been taking stims to stay awake all the time, and it's adversely affecting their behavior and mindset. Really immersive dialogue. I could spend so much time in this place, it really does feel like they were trying to make an Aliens game in an RPG.

Don't you think it'd be a lot easier if BioWare just didn't have the Paragon/Renegade scale displayed? Then there wouldn't be that annoying habit of trying to go all one way or the other. I was just playing and had to make this huge good/evil choice. My natural response would've been to kill off the Rachni queen. But because that was the "Renegade" option, and I'm trying to go for a full "Paragon" playthrough, I had to pick the other option, which was letting them go.

Because seriously, trying to get the most Paragon points was the only reason I picked that option to let this queen insect go. The Rachni are basically giant space bugs that once almost conquered the galaxy. They're governed by a hive mind, come out of eggs laid by queens... just your standard Alien ripoffs. And here I had the chance to wipe out the last queen. Somehow that was deemed the "evil" choice though.

It's just hard to believe that any rational person in that situation would've been Jesus-like and let that bug go free. Now, this one queen in particular did telepathically communicate with me and say that of course she wasn't going to be like that, she would teach her offspring to exist peacefully, mend their ways, etc. But really, who would just accept the word of this thing? I doubt even Gandhi himself would've been so understanding and trusting of a large space insect. Ya know what, it really reminds me of the TNG episode "I, Borg." Didn't buy Picard's decision in that episode and I don't buy the Paragon choice here.

It was sooo tempting to just hit the Renegade dialogue option and fry the Queen. But BioWare just decided that would be evil and I'd be punished with Renegade points. Seems to me they shouldn't be making judgements in really gray areas like that. I guess I just don't like BioWare pushing their non-genocidal agenda in their games.

I think the high point of that campaign was probably the NSF undercover missions. You wouldn't expect that sort of storytelling potential in a space sim. I mean, I dunno about you, but I actually found myself forming a relationship with Commander Snipes, the undercover handler. The voice actor did a great job fleshing him out. And then later, when he goes missing... it's just crushing. It seemed Commander Snipes just ended up being another faceless casualty in the grand NSF war. Like tears in rain.

Until of course you go rescue him in that SOF nebula mission. The only nebula mission I really got irritated with. It got so frustrating finding and losing the various nav buoys. The fact that you got to pilot the sexy Erinyes didn't *quite* make up for that.

I really wonder how long FreeSpace 2's development cycle was. Cause if ever there was a game that was perfectly polished and stable on launch, that's the one I'd point to. It got one patch, but I think that was just correcting some minor multiplayer issues.

I'm not sure if you guys agree with this, but the way I see it... FreeSpace 2 still holds up today. You can play it and it'll hold up in both graphics and gameplay. Annnd... I don't think you can say the same for most old games. Mind you, I'm not talking about Open FS2. I meant playing it without mods, it still holds up. Obviously the mods make it look much better of course. But you install vanilla FS2, and aside from some small issues like the text not aligning correctly, the game still looks and plays great. And this is a game that was released in 1999, ten fucking years ago. You really have to wonder what sort of drugs those Volition folks were on back in the day, to craft a masterpiece like that. It's very telling when the worst thing you can say about a game is that its pilot avatar pics look a little ugly. What else is there to say? I dunno. It's a crying shame it wasn't a financial success.

Episode 1x11 - The First Step

Thrax: "We succeed or fail, for the glory of Phaeton?"
Glycon: "Phaeton is our leader, unfortunately."
Thrax: "Unfortunately."
Glycon: "But that's not our concern, we're soldiers. I've ordered a counterattack with all remaining forces to retake the main base. The attack will draw in the Terran e-frames, then you must lead an attack on the ExoCruisers."
Thrax: "Yes, Sir."
Glycon: "Thrax, we have one scout ship left. If the attack fails you must take as many of our people as you can and escape to Venus."
Thrax: "What about you?"
Glycon: "I will lead the counterattack."
Thrax: "You are sacrificing yourself for nothing."
Glycon: "Has it not occurred to you that we are all sacrificing ourselves for nothing? It has become Phaeton's war, not ours."

Sharos: "What are Glycon's orders?"
Thrax: "Do you never grow tired of it, Sharos? The fighting?"
Sharos: "It is what we were bred for."
Thrax: "And when the war is over? What will we do then?"
Sharos: "For us, the war will never be over."

1. The Dark Knight

The greatest superhero movie of all time. This should've won Best Picture at the Oscars. What other superhero film can you actually say that about? What Christopher Nolan did with Batman and The Joker is simply the stuff of legend. You can't just look at it as a comic book movie, you can't just look at it as an action flick, you can't just look at it as a crime drama... it's a mindblowing masterpiece of cinema. Nolan took a franchise that had become known for "Chill out, bird boy!" and somehow managed to craft a dark epic that would become the second highest grossing film of all time. To make that sort of herculean effort with minimal CGI in today's environment... the man is simply a visionary genius.

And Heath Ledger... what is there left to say about Heath Ledger? He didn't win the Oscar because he died. It wasn't a sympathy vote. He deserved it, by portraying The Joker in a way wholly unlike anything we'd ever seen before. Fuck Cesar Romero, fuck Jack Nicholson, and fuck Mark Hamill. Ledger will always be The Joker now. So many quotable lines, and even a second villain that felt natural and meshed with the plot. Who could forget that brilliant hospital scene with our first glimpse at Two Face? The way Nolan teased at it, turning his head away at just the right moment to heighten the suspense. And then the actual reveal, and hearing the gasps in the audience. Just great iconic moments.

Another iconic scene: the interrogation room. What a wonderful way to subvert the traditional interrogation. Start it in darkness, but then shift into bright light, contrasting the white room with the blackness of Batman. Also reflecting the two warring sides of Two Faces. The Batman pummels the Joker, yet somehow still ends up being helpless while the Joker is holding all the cards. This isn't the sort of stuff you expect from a superhero action film. That's why it's so wonderful. Just as the Joker turned Gotham upside down, this film has completely turned its genre upside down. My favorite scene is the ending monologue from Commissioner Gordon: "Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector... a Dark Knight." BAM. The title card finally comes onscreen. If that didn't affect you in some manner after witnessing the last 2 and a half hours, you're just not human.

2. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

You have to know, Star Trek 2 was one of the first films I remember watching as a young lad. Back in the good ol days, channel 44, which would later go on to become UPN and then the CW, would rerun old movies all the time, and one of those would be Star Trek 2. This was my very first Star Trek film, and left an absolutely indelible impression on me. This film was what made me a Trekkie. It was pretty cool too, cause this was right around the time that TNG was starting up and I was able to watch that great show as it originally ran.

Then my family bought a VCR player and I recorded Star Trek 2. And rewatched it and rewatched it and rewatched it. Fuck all other films, I couldn't get sick of viewing this somewhat poor quality recording. It got to the point where I could pretty much recite the dialogue line for line as they said it onscreen. Ya know how it is, being a young kid and going all crazy trying to ape Ricardo Montalban with fun lines like "To the last... I will grapple with thee. From Hell's heart... I stab at thee! For HATE's SAKE... I spit... my last breath... at thee!" Just wonderful emotional lines that you could really rasp out. Of course, some of the dialogue made absolutely no sense back then. It took me years to figure out exactly what "Sauce for the goose" meant, for example. Still, great childhood memories.

Another fun part of watching this movie as a kid is that I would actually act out the shaking of the ship during the battle scenes in my own living room. Sitting on the living room sofa, I'd sway to and fro and get rocked by each and every photon torpedo impact as if I was truly on the bridge of the Enterprise. That's how real the movie felt to me, I wanted to be right there with Captain Kirk and crew.

So, that's just a bit of context to let you know how much I cherish this film. The best Star Trek film ever, and my favorite film until The Dark Knight last summer. What Nicholas Meyer pulled off was nothing short of a miracle, when you look back and see that it was following up on Star Trek The Motionless Picture. Who could have had the imagination, and force of persuasion to alter basically the entire Star Trek universe like that? Suddenly... awful pajama uniforms gave way to awesomely elegant red jacket uniforms. With that iconic clasp over the right shoulder? That feature's been copied for fucking decades now, in all kinds of scifi movies and video games. You've gotta give props, that was an amazing costume change. And the single best starship battle, STILL. You can show me all sorts of ship battles from DS9 or Nemesis, but I still hold that Mutara Nebula battle as the greatest ship to ship battle in Trek history. You cannot top that film finale. Which is strange, because it's two Federation starships battling one another.

Then you realize that's what made it great. What was great was how they made it two Federation starships fighting each other. It seems like that would be a weird dynamic, but they make it work. The Reliant is from Starfleet, but it looks totally different from the Enterprise. And I'm not just talking about the red lighting they used, which was blatant as all hell. It's got two low nacelles right under it, far apart, so it kinda looks like a mean pitbull. A pitbull in somewhat of a lean, crouched down. Small, but packing a punch. While the Enterprise is longer and much more graceful with two nacelle struts in a V, like an eagle. This really hits home when the Enterprise is cruising towards the Mutara Nebula with the Reliant hot on its heels.

The final battle is tense, just like the u-boat films which Nicholas Meyer referenced on his commentary of the DVD. But what's so important is how slow the ships move. This is what is great about Trek, they are these giant ships and they act like it. When the Reliant comes charging out of the static towards the Enterprise, we can see Kirk pivoting his chair, while ordering "Evasive starboard!" Yet the ship herself turns much more slowly then his chair pivot. We feel the engines straining for such a maneuver. Is it realistic? Oh hell no, of course not. Ships are weightless in space, yada yada yada. But it doesn't matter, because Trek ships need that sense of size and weight. After all, this is space... they have nothing but the Enterprise and an occasional alien planet. This ship is the workplace, and home, and overall landscape for 500 people. She's as much a character as any of the main characters. So to maintain the heft and importance, it is crucial that the ship not be pulling off all sorts of crazy loop-de-loops or whatnot.

And lastly, the movie had this immense sense of fun and adventure that I just loved. William Shatner spoke of this quality when he said, "There is a texture to the best STAR TREK hours that verges on tongue-in-cheek but isn't... it's as though the characters within the play have a great deal of joy about themselves, a joy of living... you play it with the reality you would in a kitchen-sink drama written for today's life." Harve Bennett called the quality "tap dancing," the ability to convey a sense of joie de vivre even in the midst of a seriously dramatic moment. This sense of exuberance was something that the TNG cast was never quite able to capture in their four film outings.

So yea, Wrath of Khan still holds up. That's why it's a classic. I will always have a big goofy grin on my face while watching this film. Just can't help it. And yes, occasionally reciting a line like "Sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik. The odds will be even."

3. The Rock

Here's a shocker... it's a fucking Michael Bay movie! But ya know what, that doesn't matter, because Michael Bay managed to actually combine his great action sensibilities with superb storytelling. Everything here is outrageous and explosiony and exciting, but without going so far over the top that it becomes incredibly retarded and irritating, e.g. Armageddon, Bad Boys 2. This is, in my opinion, the perfect modern day action flick. Navy Seals, U.S. Marines, jet fighters, a deadly nerve toxin, Sean Connery being a bad ass, Nicholas Cage being crazy fucking Nicholas Cage and allowing us to laugh at him... it has it all. It's sad that all of Bay's films after this have failed to live up to the promise that The Rock showed us. Perhaps he was just more hungry and determined back then, who knows. But even if Transformers 2 and 3 turn out to be turds on the order of the Star Wars prequels, I'll still remember him as the director of this great action flick.

4. Aliens

So many franchises we have today owe their success to Aliens. The Zerg from Starcraft? Aliens. The Tyranids from Warhammer 40k? Aliens. The bugs from Starship Troopers the film (not the book)? Aliens. The Brood from X-Men? Aliens. The Flood from Halo? Aliens. Probably a few others I've missed? Aliens. James Cameron took Ridley Scott's spookhouse in space and completely changed gears to deliver the ultimate scifi war film. Do smartguns on steadycam mounts make a ton of logical sense? Maybe not, but they looked damn cool. So much of what James Cameron designed was incredibly cool and has influenced pop culture. The Pelicans from Halo? Just copies of the Dropship from Aliens. The dropship pilot telling us we're in the pipe five by five? A direct line from Aliens. Angry black sargeant? That's just Apone. Shotgun being good in Doom? Probably Hick's, for close encounters.

The greatness of Aliens, apart from its many cool little tidbits, is the pacing. It's relentless. You're on this sorta roller coaster ride, but it's not quite fun. It's tense, scary, completely draining. And when you think you've managed to escape the worst of it... the Queen pops out of the rear landing gear and you're right back in the thick of it, witnessing an epic fight with a goddamn power loader. This film is great because it dialed absolutely everything up to 11. Looking back, it's easy to see that Alien 3 would've been somewhat of a disappointment no matter what they chose to do. Aliens said pretty much everything that needed to be said about humans in space battling xenomorphs. Game over man, game over.

5. Superman

Yes, another superhero film. This one also has a special place in my heart. Christopher Reeve set the mold for all other actors portraying superheroes. And nobody since has managed to break it. To me, Reeve *is* the Man of Steel. I don't care if the special effects are dated these days. This film's greatness transcends that. After all, Superman Returns had state of the art special effects and yet was a complete failure of a film. Christopher Reeve was able to make me believe a man could fly.

Also, Superman is one of those magical movies that really lodged itself in my mind because it's one of those films that, because of its length, I could never actually finish watching as a kid. Ya know, it's one of those films that you'll catch on tv, or see at a day care center somewhere in Reno, and yet something will always come up which prevents you from getting the ending. Either you'll just fall asleep, or you'll get picked up from the daycare center... just events unfold which prevent a full viewing. For me, it was this film and Back to the Future 2 that always seemed to last forever and I'd never finish till the end. That gave them a sort of mystique in my childhood.

Now, there is one weakness of Superman, and that's the ending. Superman turns the world backwards in time to save Lois and stop California from falling into the ocean. Yes, it's not great... it doesn't really make any sense. But it's one small blemish on an otherwise grand superhero origin story. And honestly, how could you resist the very end when Christopher Reeve flies over the earth at the onset of a new dawn, looks up at us, and smiles in the way that Superman would smile? It's just movie magic, folks.

What makes Superman work is Richard Donner's verisimilitude, especially during the Krypton and Smallville scenes. This movie was the first to tell the superhero origin story, and is still the best one, in my opinion. The shots of the crystalline Kryptonian landscape are awe inspiring. You really believe this is an alien world with an alien people. Smallville looked like the town that Norman Rockwell grew up in. Sure, it doesn't actually exist in real life, but it looks like how we would all want a small American town to look. Who wouldn't want to grow up in a pastural idyllic setting like that? Who could possibly doubt that America's greatest hero would emerge from such a place? When the camera raised and zoomed ahead of Clark and Martha Kent, embracing in a rich field of golden wheat, it was the film was letting us know we had just witnessed the birth of a modern American myth.

And of course, the soundtrack. Who the hell doesn't know the Superman soundtrack? I haven't talked about the soundtrack of any other film on this list, and it's for good reason. None of them matter compared to John Williams' work here. Truly a masterpiece of scoring, and probably his greatest work to date. The notes simply cry out "Superman" even though there aren't any lyrics. Just as Aliens worked to pummel you with dread and suspense, the Superman music worked to uplift the spirit and allow the audience to soar like the Man of Steel himself.

Well fuck me... it's Lt. Reginald Barclay going all crazy here. Probably suffering from holo-addiction again, hehe.

Isn't it strange how all blankets in the future look like they're made out of tin foil? Or a car sunshade, I guess? That's gotta be damn uncomfortable. Star Trek TNG had the same exact blankets.

Asian security guard: "Damn lurkers... we oughta space all of em!" <-this right here is possibly the worst line reading I've ever heard.

Wait wait... this guard... he just said he "missed" the war? How the fuck do you miss a war when it's aliens trying to annihilate humanity? That doesn't seem like the sort of draft you can dodge. And Garibaldi's about the same age as he is, near as I can tell.

Ah jeez... the Doctor's already hooking up with that woman? After she just found out her husband's dead? That's pretty messed up. With her being in stasis for over a hundred years, it's gotta be drier then the Sahara down there...

Wow... the final showdown with the beast. I think I'm gonna lay off the CGI of the actual thing, since it's not good, but not mindnumbingly bad. Just gotta accept it, I guess. But... uh, the muzzle flash of their advanced scifi guns, that was really poorly done. There's no other way to describe that CGI. It looked like they just cut out the muzzle flashes from guns in comic books and pasted them into the scene. No idea why they didn't just use actual guns with actual muzzle flash. That would've worked out fine.

Oh snap, it was heading for Za Ha Doom. That means the invisible killer must've been some sort of disembodied Shadow. Nice continuity thread.

My impressions of the fourth episode of the second season:

Ya know, Garibaldi seems like such a nice affable guy. It's hard to believe he eventually turns into a bad egg. Wait... is it bad egg or bad apple? I think I meant to say bad apple. It's either bad apple or rotten egg, right? That sounds better.

Overall, no complaints about this episode. It was actually pretty good. I just thought everything pretty much worked. The friendship between Sheridan and the other captain seemed natural enough and not forced, we got some action (finally) with the Starfury rescue in hyperjump/hyperspace/subspace/Idon'tknowwhattheycallitinthisshow, and the humor with the main characters going on the food plan(diet) was pretty good, unlike the Drazi scenes from the other episode which I really did *not* like.

It's funny, the scene where Garibaldi was smuggling in ingredients for his traditional Italian dish really kinda reminded me of a SeaQuest DSV episode where a crewmember was smuggling in real beef for a hamburger, since meat had been outlawed in the future. But instead of getting caught and having the meal thrown out like in that show, it actually ended with him making the dish and sharing it with the Doctor in this really sorta... cozy and humorous scene.

And Delenn had some really poetic words about the universe at the end. Kinda fortune cookie-esque, but what can ya do... wise aliens always say stuff like that.

Only real flaws were the terrible acting from the panicked bridge crew on the Cortez, and the comm officer who had this really heavy Chinese accent for some reason. And uh, the CGI for the Cortez was pretty terrible, the texturing and geometry looked like something made in DoGA. I'd be really curious to see what Babylon 5 would look like if they'd used real models instead of CGI, like TNG and the first half of DS9.

Oh wow, I just found out D.C. Fontana wrote the 4th episode. That makes a lot of sense now.