Science Fiction

Doctor Who – The Girl in the Fireplace

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – The Girl in the Fireplace
  • wiki: link

“The Doctor is worth the monsters. One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.”

 

Doctor Who - The Girl in the Fireplace

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who we continue to look back at some old episodes of the series. If I had to choose my favorite episode of the Doctor Who relaunch it would be “Blink,” but a very close second would be “The Girl in the Fireplace.” From the show’s Second Season, the TARDIS lands in the year 5,000 on an abandoned space station populated by clockwork automatons whose soul purpose seems to be using the ship to punch a hole through time and opening windows into 18th Century France along the lifeline of a single woman.

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Ender’s Game

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Ender’s Game
  • IMDB: link

Ender's GameOriginally written as a short story published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, author’s Orson Scott Card‘s story of a complicated boy who is humanity’s best chance at survival took another eight years before it was released as the full novel Ender’s Game. I first read the novel more than two decades ago. It’s held-up remarkably well, although given its subject matter I doubted would ever be made into a movie.

Adapted and directed by Gavin Hood the story of Andrew “Ender” Wiggin isn’t an easy one to pull off, especially in under two hours. Although the timeline is heavily condensed, and the subplots involving Ender’s siblings is largely ignored, the movie gets far more right than I expected.

A lonely child with a good heart but a special talent for measured brutality, Ender Wiggin isn’t the easiest of protagonists to put on screen. The best choice Hood makes is to cast Asa Butterfield in the complex role that requires us to feel for the situation the young man finds himself in but also be a little taken aback by the methods he uses.

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Samurai Jack #1

/ / Comics

Samurai Jack #1IDW’s new Samurai Jack comic continues the hero’s quest to find a way to return to the past to his own time, defeat Aku, and erase the future in which he still finds himself trapped. The comic’s opening arc introduces the idea of the Rope of Eons which Aku shredded after using it to learn to control time.

Learning that the various Threads of Time can be rewoven to return the samurai home, Jack follows the directions of a less than trustworthy source who neglects to inform the samurai to win the first thread he will have to defeat an array of champions in the bottom of a gladiatorial pit.

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The Tomorrow People – In Too Deep

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: The Tomorrow People – In Too Deep
  • IMDB: link

The Tomorrow People - In Too Deep

In the second episode of the series Stephen (Robbie Amell) struggles with his decision to work for Ultra while struggling to keep his friendship with the Tomorrow People and hiding all of the changes in his life from his mother (Sarah Clarke) and younger brother (Jacob Kogan). The truth of just how ruthlessly his uncle (Mark Pellegrino) runs Ultra is made clear to Stephen after witnessing the attempts to kill a young man (Nick Eversman) using his new found powers to rob banks. Unwilling to be a party to murder, Stephen convinces Cara (Peyton List) and John (Luke Mitchell) to step-up and take the kid in before Ultra gets their hands on him.

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Gravity

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Gravity
  • IMDB: link

GravitySpace and underwater films offer the unique juxtaposition to explore both vastness and claustrophobia simultaneously. With Gravity writer/director Alfonso Cuarón offers a tense thriller, a moving character study centered around a single performance, and a roller-coaster that provides some of the best action scenes of this year. The result is a thrilling 91-minute thematic experience which easily ranks as one of the year’s best films.

Seeing the film in 3D IMAX, Cuarón’s vision is breathtaking. Although George Clooney has a supporting role as a throwback larger-than-life astronaut who would have been right at home during NASA’s heyday when astronauts were the country’s greatest heroes, Sandra Bullock carries nearly the entire film. And she does it well. As Dr. Ryan Stone,  a scientist sent to work on the Hubble Space Telescope, Bullock becomes untethered and lost in the vastness of space miles above Earth when debris from a Russian satellite rips through the shuttle and leaves her without anyone to rely on other than herself.

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