Science Fiction

The Peripheral – Empathy Bonus

  • Title: The Peripheral – Empathy Bonus
  • IMDb: link

While Burton (Jack Reynor)  and his soldier buddies deal with the mercenaries and the fallout of their attack on the house, Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) returns to virtual reality for answers meeting the fixer Wilf Netherton (Gary Carr) and his boss who need Flynne’s help in finding the missing Aelita West (Charlotte Riley). The episode continues to be intentionally cagey with the reasons for why Aelita is needed and why Flynn needs to be the one to find her in ways that feel more for the audience’s benefit than for legitimate story reasons (as a more straightforward approach would likely have been quicker to earn her trust).

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Tales of the Jedi

  • Title: Tales of the Jedi
  • wiki: link

Set during the era of the prequel trilogy, Tales of the Jedi offers six animated shorts delving into the pasts of fan-favorite Star Wars characters. The anthology centers around two characters in particular with three episodes each dealing with Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein) and Count Dooku (Corey Burton) during the times when both were members of the Jedi Order.

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Andor – Episode 7

  • Title: Andor – Announcement
  • IMDb: link

Andor shifts back into a low gear for an episode where the plot isn’t noticeably advanced for much of the episode. We get multiple scenes of the Imperials talking about action (but not really doing much) following the heist, the disgraced Syril Karn (Kyle Soller) getting to work at his new job, squabbling amongst the Rebels concerning the heist, and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) returns home for a brief moment for final goodbyes. While there’s some nice moments in the latter, nothing of note happens here. Then, bizarrely, the episode jumps forward an indeterminate amount of time to a different world with Cassian arrested for walking while not Imperial. For an episode determined not to do much, these final few minutes can give you whiplash setting, I almost thought the episode had put me to sleep an I missed a full half-hour of plot. Nope, that’s just Andor‘s attempt at “story telling.”

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The Peripheral – Pilot

  • Title: The Peripheral – Pilot
  • IMDb: link

The opening episode of The Peripheral introduces us to as talented gamer Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) who would rather spend her time in the real world than VR trying to support her ailing mother (Melinda Page Hamilton) and sketchy older brother (Jack Reynor) who often enlists her help on his various schemes. With enough trouble in the real world, Flynne isn’t looking for trouble in VR as well but that’s what happens when she helps her brother test a new Sim unlike anything either of them has seen before.

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Andor – Episode 6

  • Title: Andor – Episode 6
  • IMDb: link

The sixth episode of Andor finally gets to the heist, although the show’s method of drawing events out unnecessarily continues even during the heist itself often flashing to events elsewhere on the military base or with the locals amassing to view the celestial event. The choice would seem to be done in attempt to draw out the tension of events even longer. However, the result is actually the opposite as editing of the episode continually undercuts and distracts from the events the show has finally gotten around to delivering. If Andor was a comic book series it would be a three-issue story stretched thinly over an entire year’s run where you could easily miss two or three months at a time and still have no trouble staying caught up with the story.

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