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Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Memoria, Angel: Time Bomb, Enterprise: Damage & The Forgotten Reviews (Spoilers) -

Damn, do I feel stupid... I was just out in the backyard, helping my father and neighbour out with the fence we're rebuilding outside. The old fence had finally succumb to the gales and pressures of the nightlife in Canada, and sort of... umm... blew apart and blew away, to places we quite frankly haven't exactly determined yet, but we're working on it... The thing is, I was digging a hole through the earth, trying to get underneath a stupid chunk of wood that was still lodged in the ground. I worked fifteen minutes on it until my dad just came along, shook his head in disgrace, took a sledgehammer, and knocked that slab of wood right into the sky with one swift backswing...

... and, well... damn... yeah, after three years of U of T engineering, I definitely feel dumb...

"WHAT THE FUCK?! TWO fucking good Smallville episodes in a row? What the fuck is the world coming to?..."

Yeah, well... I was surprised as anyone else to find out that goddammit, Memoria was just as good as Truth last week. I mean, what are the chances that the Smallville writers could actually strike gold twice in two weeks with their previous track record?... Once again, the episode was light on Lana, cleavage on Chloe, and precarious on Pete. Meaning, I got no stupid ass, cheesy scenes of teen angst redundancy between Clark and his never to be girlfriend, Chloe was noticably absent, and Pete wasn't around for no apparent reason whatsoever either, like always... And hell, the episode wasn't even about Clark, although thanks to that Evanescence or Everquest or Everwood or whatever song at the end that always softens me up, even I kind of enjoyed the talk with his mother about forgetting his biological mother (was Lara really his first word?... damn, wish I had that kind of memory when I was a kid...)... Nope, while I enjoyed the sight of Clark squirming under the pressure of that "I know your secret" thing from the best Smallville episode of the year so far, Memoria was truly a bravo story between Lex and his father... The running theme of the Smallville season seems to be loving mothers vs hateful biological fathers, and even compared to the Jor'el stuff we've been given, Lionel truly takes the cake this episode. I mean, nearly every single Lex Luthor flashback scene was heart wrenching. Whoever played the small Lex did a hell of a job, but Lionel did an even better one. The look of mangled and wrangled pain, sorrow, and fury in the strangling eyes of Lionel when he saw baby Julian dead, was probably the best damn acting I've seen in Smallville all year. And hell, to top it all off, it was even topped off by the tears forming in Lionel's eyes when Lex finally told him the truth. I never would've suspected that it was Lex's mother who killed her own son out of love so to speak. In a sense, it speaks volumes about present day abortion issues... And the look on Lionel's eyes when he admitted that things really would've been different between himself and Lex if he had just known? Honestly. I may not be a fan of the Emmies, but that was some of the most incredible acting I've seen, on any show for a very long time. For once, an emotional scene was truly heart breaking to me. And considering Smallville's track record in my small Smallville reviews at least, that's saying a hell of a lot...

But as much as I have to give props to the Smallville writers for this week and the last, I still have to yield the best episode of the week award to Angel. Time Bomb may not have nearly the emotional impact on me that Smallville's Memoria or Enterprise's Forgotten had on me, but the writing was so damn strong throughout the entire episode, that it even made me forgive the fact that Fred isn't amongst the living anymore... I'll admit here and now that until this week, I really haven't seen any emotional point to Illyria, except for some steamy hot action scenes with Spike in the training room. But those few precious moments of screen time really evolved into something special in Time Bomb - it gave both characters real meaning to their character arcs, and it seems that every other character managed to feed off of their charm as well. Like leaking petrol actually... First things first, Spike was truly the man this episode. Not only can he now kick Illyria's ass in a fair fight, like I always knew he could. But his snarky remarks were some of his best since the start of the season, or even since Buffy to be honest. I loved his internet comeback against Illyria's constant glorification, and I still crack up whenever he conjectures that it's not murder "if you say yes"... Time Bomb was also the first episode in a long while that I've truly enjoyed Lorne's presence. Finally he's back to being the "demon clown" we all love him for! Although his walkie talkie routine did get old fast, who here didn't at least chuckle at his fan homage in claiming he still liked the villainous Hamilton over the ever annoying Eve? And although it took two rounds for me to finally get the joke, I now snicker in delight whenever I imagine Lorne hiding from Illyria inside an elevator... Lorne also had a great scene with the returning Gunn, in which both characters kept the entire scene interesting with a lot of character revelations and developments. Gunn himself had the best episode he's had in weeks, almost topping the dry throat he was hording back when he first found out that he was responsible for Illyria... Any viewer could've been able to tell the metaphor behind the suburbs as a prison: just like with Wolfram and Hart, a lot of lies cover up a lot of evil and guilt deep down below. But nevertheless, Gunn's speech to Angel did make a lot of sense, to the point where I was agreeing with him and almost feeling my pain, instead of just rolling my eyes at stuff I've already known for a damn long time. I mean, I can forgive an onscreen lecture if a) the acting is exceptional, which it was, and b) the episode has the jail demon hilariously stabbing out his own heart. 'Cause yeah, you know - that's just got to hurt...

The episode truly belonged to three characters though: Wesley, Angel, and I hate to say this, but Illyria as well... she did steal the show, as only my precious Amy Acker can... First of all, Wesley was hilarious in his conversation with Gunn. Not apologizing because it would've sounded awkward - why does that sound so familiar?... And the psychobabble books he had littered all over his office? Well, listening to his watch, Stone Cold style, was a bit too over the top for me, but I just loved the sight of Wesley frantically tapping the pages of his books! He was nerdy, geeky, and homicidal Wesley all wrapped into one... Angel himself didn't have much to do this episode, except oddly turn semi-evil in the end with the child sacrifice B-plot. But he really did put in a strong performance with Illyria during the time travel segment, where the Old One's "speechifying" was actually enjoyable thanks to some daring comments about it not being time for "When We Were Muck stories"... Angel and Illyria both had some great lines this episode, and that's why I gave it my best episode of the week award. Although I did kind of frown at her annoying hurricane and gales comments, I must admit that Illyria's talks about being a ruler and a king did feel spot on. Los Angeles is technically Angel's kingdom, considering how much power he has. Even Illyria knows it - hell, she now even fears science - which is probably why she's hanging around... The whole idea of the season has been that power corrupts, and that heroes simply don't accept the world as it is. They change it. And that's what this whole episode was about - how does Angel want to change the world?... Although the episode didn't involve the most special of special effects, I must admit that Amy Acker's acting (in pain) and the sound effects were more than enough to actually make the time travel paradoxes seem tolerable. And was it me, or did her hair look more brown at the end than blue?... I love brunettes, I really do. Or I love Amy Acker, but that's besides the point...

Moving along, I didn't review Damage last week, so I'll do a requisite short review of it this week... And simply put, truth be told, while Damage was a pretty damn good episode in the end, it couldn't fulfill my grand expectations after an episode like Azati Prime. Short story short, I thought that Archer was returned to his crew too damn easily, and too damn quickly - I was hoping for some sort of devious plan or something, rather than Archer just felling unconscious on the Aquatics' floor... As for the rest of the episode, there was one thing I loved: Archer going medieval on innocent asses! Oh, yeah! Pick on the helpless! Steal that candy for the babies, yeah!... Finally, my longest living dream has finally been fulfilled! Star Trek has finally become corrupt in the pale moonlight, and a starship captain crossed the line to prey on the weak and pathetically helpless! YES! It's like a sexually charged fantasy come true... The thing is, as queued before, Damage was very similar to DS9's Pale Moonlight, in which Sisko kept his mouth shut of aiding in the murder of the Romulan ambassador. Although I didn't enjoy that episode, I will never forget it's ending... and while Archer technically didn't murder anyone in Damage, he definitely crossed the line that seriously made me smile in guilt. The thing that made Damage superior to Pale Moonlight, was that while Sisko has always been morally ambiguous, Archer was not. In movies where the good cop turns bad, I never care, and why? Because we never got to know the good cop in the first place, just the bad one... But we did get to know Archer as the naive captain. And that's why Damage excelled - because it truly showed the man in charge growing just a wee bit older, and perhaps just a wee bit wiser... I loved the reference back to Anomaly, that Archer was now no better than the pirates who attacked Enterprise early on and killed a crewman. In that sense, Enterprise has truly gone full circle with a storyarc that rivals Locutus of Borg and the Dominion War as the best Trek arcs ever. I shit you not. Archer was fantastic this episode. The darkish, gray lighting in the scene where he admits to Phlox that he's about to break his morals, was simply one of the most powerful Trek scenes in years. And to Archer's credit, he isn't like most of the pirates on the modern day internet, at least not yet - at least he acknowledges when he's doing something wrong, and tries his best not to rationalize. And in that sense, not only did I thoroughly enjoy his lashing of the poor Romulan-reminding race (uh oh...) that he picked on, but I respected him as a person. I mean, he didn't just do what he had to do because he justified it as the right thing to - but rather, he knew what he had to do, and did it accepting the consequences... there is a difference, although perhaps not in the piss poor wording I chose...

Damage was only damaged by a pretty annoying subplot of T'Pol taking Trellium D. I mean, as if... as if honestly, it's like the writers' actually expect soldiers to go off to far away lands and get hooked on opium or some crack like that... which they do actually, but that's besides the point... I personally thought a better reason than just addiction would've worked here. Maybe T'Pol thought she could become immune to the drug to insulate the ship? Maybe she thought it could not only help her relations with the crew, but with the mind disease she now has?... Either way, I didn't particularly enjoy the scenes of her craving a fix in the depressurized parts of the ship. Nevertheless, Jolene's acting truly stood out, as did all the characters in Damage. Malcolm got to look like the innocent brute for once, almost objecting to attacking a friendly vessel (why, Malcolm, why? Pick on the defenseless, dammit!). Hoshi got a brief moment of talking about pianos - plus she got to look as hottie as ever... Mayweather got a cliche line that everyone on the internet but me seemed to care about... Phlox got some good one on one time with T'Pol about her addiction, and put on a great acting performance when murmuring to the captain that it's good to see him again amidst all the dead crewmembers... And Trip? He's always been the man, although I forget why this episode (probably since he was too dumb to touch the force field with his gun instead of his hand, but I digress). And Damage will always be etched into my mind, simply because of the incredible damage that was shown across the ship. I mean, I never enjoyed Voyager's Year of Hell set, because it seemed so damn static and predetermined. But in Enterprise, not only were there bulkheads lying everywhere, but you actually saw the members of the ship actively trying to keep the walls together with welding and fusing and sparkles and shine. Just little touches like that, plus the sight of Archer shoving his inoperable door closed in a maniacal fury of futility, made the episode one of the more memorable ones of the season...

Hmm... guess that wasn't such a short review for Damage afterall... Well, let's see if I can keep this week's episode review for The Forgotten any shorter then...

Because action and set wise, it couldn't stand up to its immediate predecessor. Except for the sight of rations behind handed out in the mess-hall, nothing really stood out about the scenery in Forgotten. The plasma leak was an interesting special effect, but to be honest, the emergency threat to Enterprise kind of felt like a piss poor tack on to the real story of the episode: the character arcs... The Forgotten may easily be forgotten by my friends as just another filler episode with little to no combat, but to me, it was special enough simply because it brought out the absolute best in Trip Tucker Trinneer... Now, I won't talk much about Captain Archer or Degra, considering both characters were kind of neutral this episode, sharing evidence that wouldn't even be considered evidence by any race other than the one who takes the word of "she" without any proof... But Degra was note worthy for one scene at least, when he was forced to deal with the attack on earth in the face of Trip. At first, I thought about smacking Trip for defying the captain's attempts to mend relations with Degra, but then it struck and bitch slapped me back - what would an American soldier say to Heinrich Himler in World War 2 if he ever got the chance?... Once again, we got the Michael Jackson look of "for the children!" in Degra's eyes, but before I could roll my eyes, I was pleasantly surprised that he started taking responsibility for his actions, rather than just thinking of his own species and making excuses... And Trip? Wow, every scene he was in was golden. I mean, I even laughed at his awful attempts to write the letter at first (yes, they were really that bad). And hell, I even felt a bit creeped out by his dream with the dead Taylor, if only because she had that kind of eerie "Remember me, bitch" look to her bubbly cheeks... And as I mentioned, every scene that Trip was with another character, the rest of the crew would just feed off of him and his talent. For instance, Trip was so damn focused on himself and the ship, that he barely even cared about Malcolm frying in the plasma pan over on the side. And Phlox did a great job as a "car salesman", but Trip did an even better impression of a guy who simply couldn't care less... And when T'Pol finally came over to talk with Trip at the end of the episode? I mean, wow... I talked about Smallville having an impact on me, but I'm thinking the only reason it did was because I watched it after Tucker nearly made me weep in sorrow this episode... Because honestly! Give the man an Emmy! I knew it was coming - a reference to Taylor being like his sister or something. But I never thought it would hit so close to home with me, for reasons I can only guess at right now... Connor Trinneer (and the director, Levar Burton) played the moment brilliantly if you ask me - Trip was trying to hold it back in like a man but just couldn't, resulting in tears that were much more realistic to me than any movie has been able to achieve for a very long time... And when T'Pol put his hand on his shoulder? I don't know why, but it touched me how he gently grabbed it back and nodded. These two characters have the best of chemistry - I've known it since the first episode of Enterprise... I just never knew how emotional and steamy their scenes could be when neuropressure or a hot shower ain't involved... The only thing pretty negative about Forgotten, was that it seemed to forget all about characters like Hoshi and Mayweather in the process. But since that's never been an issue for me for the past three seasons, why start nitpicking now?...

Forgotten may not have been better than Damage of last week, but it sure did come close to earning my best episode of the week award. What irks me is that each and every week, each of the three major shows (now that Stargate is gone) continue to gain on each other in quality and equality. I mean hell, when even Smallville ends up entertaining, you either know that a) you're getting lucky, without getting lucky (goddammit), or b) something is wrong. Something is terribly, terribly wrong...

Nevertheless, the Leafs fucking beat the Philadelphia pussy wipes. Wednesday was a fucking great day in television...

... or at least, that's how I felt after putting up with his ridiculous cameos on American Idol and Alias...

The fact of the matter remains, I've never really been a big Tarantinite. I never watched Jackie Brown, simply because the advertisements for it literally pained my brain and forced me to sleep in the fetal position for months... I've watched Reservoir Dogs half a dozen times thanks to my brother, and never liked it once... And Pulp Fucking Fiction? How could I possibly have watched the final twenty minutes of that film at least two dozen times, yet never managed to catch any of the movie before that? I really don't know... All I know, is that while Tarantino's work "interests" me, it's never proven to be anything remotely entertaining... It's memorable perhaps, but never really favourable.

Kill Bill, Volume 2 fits right into that category. Good, but not great... Nice to know the old boy ain't losing his touch...

I can't say it was a bad movie. FarCry be it actually, in which it was probably his most entertaining film in my eyes to date, and the best film I've seen in theatres this year (... it was the only movie I've seen in theatres this year...)... which doesn't say much sadly, because I left the theatre the other day murmuring to myself about just how boring the entire film really was... The thing about Kill Bill, is that it's an homage to every single Asian film out there. And the problem for me is that, I'm fucking Asian. While the idea of a smack talking Chinese master may be new to the Western world, I've literally suffered through it countless times in B-rated Chinese films over the course of my entire lifetime. After hearing about Bill's description of them at the start of this film, I almost wanted to see what the so-called epic battles in the first Kill Bill were really like... until I saw the battles in Kill Bill Volume 2, and realized that they even suffered from the same setbacks that plague the girl power choreography in shows like Buffy and Alias. And I hate to admit this, but dammit - even Alias was better than Kill Bill Volume 2. As stupid as the plotlines and combat in that show really are, at least it has decent dialogue. At least it keeps me Gladiator entertained.

... but at least, Kill Bill did "interest me", in most parts at least... spoilers ahoy for those who care...

The original Kill Bill was badly scrutinized for lacking the kind of Tarantino depth in the conversations as, say, Reservoir Dogs had. But I was always baffled by these claims, because hell, the only scene that I even remotely found interesting in the latter film was when the police officer was having his ear cut off to the sound of jovial music... If there's anything really positive to say about Kill Bill Vol 2, it's that the characters do have some decent lines to match the quality of Tarantino's earlier work... Far away and bar none, Budd was the only character in the entire film that was actually, convincingly enough, interesting to me. He had one great line: "She deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die... but then again, so does she...". And the contrast between his supposed warrior-like status in his brother's eyes, compared to the filth and elbow asshole trash he has to put with at work, actually made the beginning of the film interesting to me (or at least until the cliche, mundane fighting began...). Literally the only moment of true comic relief in the film was when Budd admitted that he pawned his priceless gift of a sword off for $250 in Texas. I knew deep down that he didn't actually give the sword away, and strangely enough, that's what made me laugh. And what also made me laugh, was that Tarantino didn't have any other sort of comic relief later on in the film when it was actually needed, except perhaps when Uma Thurman walked into a bar after being buried alive at Wrestlemania, but that's a story for another day... While I was slapping my head at how damn dumb Budd was when he was opening up his bag of cash (doesn't he watch movies from the 70s?...), I must admit that up to that point, I was actually fondly enjoying certain parts of the movie, if only because Budd for a time was brighter than a Bud Light.... I mean, sure I saw it coming, but a smirk of guilty pleasure did graze my face as the poor Bride fell for the old 'Redneck with a Shotgun on a Rocking Chair' kind of trap... yup, it always gets them... and twas definitely something to celebrate with a cold beer and cool smoke afterwards, at least if you're a hick...

There were three scenes that do stand out in mind as at least being "remotely interesting"... I mean, we the audience all knew that it was both Bill and the Bride's father talking to Beatrix in the black and white introduction to the movie. What made the scene compelling, were the semi-dramatic camera shots of the two's feet coming closer together (making me wonder just when the massacre was about the start), and the "kiss of death" being shared between a daughter who actually seemed to care for her father, and a father who knew exactly what was going to happen... I was hoping for some more interesting dialogue in the scene though. For those twenty minutes or so of Pulp Fiction that I have seen over and over and bloody hell over again, I must admit that I did enjoy the delivery of all the swearing, as if to Tarantino the F-word was the fucking sound of music... But we got none of that in Kill Bill, except for a "bleep" early on in the film that I really don't understand to this day... The first scene in the Church really had nothing special besides the ol' foot montage, and probably the only thing that woke me up in the scene in the first place was when Beatrix finally called her mother-to-be a bitch... There wasn't enough contrast in this film between appearance and reality in terms of the F-word or what not. And actually, it was a bit too sentimental for my tastes... in the sense that it was sentimental, without being sentimental whatsofuckingever...

Which brings me to the ending of the film. I mean, at first I thought a climatic war with the father would be fought. When I realized with Beatrix that her daughter loved her grandfather, I was expecting some sort of sapply but appropriately ironic ending to happen, with The Bride unable to kill her father in the end out of fear that a) it would devastate her daughter, or b) hauntingly be too damn familiar with a girl power clone of Star Wars... But alas, even my second instinct was proven wrong, as the ending of the film absolutely sucked! We got a two second fight, a cheesy martial arts move that I got sick of back when Bart Simpson was doing it to her sister Lisa, and an ignorance-is-bliss BB daughter who goddam didn't even look like she cared that she was being taking away from the only person she's ever known or loved... I mean, what the fuck? Sure, this kind of attitude was the kind of crap that Tarantino is known for, but honestly, why then throw in that lovable scene with the daughter shooting her mother with a fake gun? Why waste the time to be sentimental and give me hope for meaning for the film, when the father doesn't even care enough for his sleeping granddaughter to put a goddam silencer on his goddam gun?... There was only one redeeming quality of that scene: the Superman conversation. Like with so many other aspects of the film, it was "interesting", though not entertaining. I did agree with the parallel, of Beatrix and Superman pretending to be something that they're not. And the best dialogue in the entire film probably came when the Asian assassin was congratulating the Bride on being pregnant... But the pacing of the dialogue in the latter half of the conversation just bored me to tears beyond my years, almost as much as their five second fight did later on. I mean, you had the punchline: "I overreacted". But in true Tarantino fashion, there was a ten second gap of silence where we could all chuckle for a second then die out, and then the characters painfully would dissect that one single line over and over again until the line has lost all punch and intrigument... The overall scene was interesting, but like I said, only one person in the entire film was three dimensional to me, and it wasn't Beatrix or her father.

Okay... maybe there was two... I already mentioned how Budd was the only real person in the film to me. I mean, although the pacing of the dialogue was once again too damn slow for its own good, I enjoyed the force put into the delivery of the "mace" lines as Uma Thurman was being placed in the casket, making the audience feel the fear of the situation far more than any cinematography could have done. And while I personally didn't enjoy it, if only because the only character I liked was dying in the process, I did find it "interesting" that the evil one-eyed Elle was reading a Black Mamba snake timbit of info off of the internet (which is something I'd sort of geekily plan to do, actually...). But even Budd couldn't leave a good taste in my mouth after this film, considering I hate the taste of beer... only one person did.

Yeah, I complained that he was just another clone of a caricature of all the Chinese Shifu movies I've seen... But so what? Just like I never get bored of Hicks with shotguns, I just never get bored of the ancient Chinese master with superhuman skills, as long as they don't have a bunch of pseudo crap values of good and evil... And first things first, I don't know who really did Pai Mei's voice or not, but the Cantonese dialect and accent were perfect as far as I could tell. I mean, sure I couldn't understand everything Pai Mei said, but I attribute that more to my own piss poor Chinese vocabulary and the poor speakers in the theatre I was in than, say, Tarantino getting Lost in Translation... And nearly every single scene with Pai Mei was cliche, but the good kind of homage cliche that works as comic relief in a bitter pill of a film. From the idea of breaking through wood with only a few centimeters to move your arm, to the sight of the poor Bride unable to hold even two chopsticks with her fingers, I did actually "enjoy" the master-pupil scenes, even though they've been done a trillion times in movie history before... And hell, Pai Mei even got a good introduction. Bill's only good line was probably his delivery of the contempt that his old master had for white, American, smartass women. That one line alone made this film stand out from the rest of the Kung Fu crowd as a breath of fresh air. I mean, it's nice to have a Shifu for once who wouldn't hesitate to destroy the world if everyone spoke Mandarin... No offence, but as a Canadian-born Cantonese, I'd kind of do the same thing...

... hmm... guess that was kind of offensive... oh well, AOL... you can't see me...

Kill Bill Volume 2 is definitely a film that has a different kind of fuzzy feeling than everything out there that is not Tarantinesque. Just the buried alive scene alone, with its clever use of the flashlight and the surround sounds of dirt beyond shoveled above the pitch dark theatre room, was more than just "interesting" to me in this day and age of hundred million dollar special effects. I mean, if Tarantino didn't drag the scene out with pure darkness for seemingly hours upon end, then maybe I could've even enjoyed the moment... and ay, there lies the rub.

The fact still remains, that while Kill Bill is a well done movie, and a well thought out film (especially by Western Kung Fu standards), I just didn't enjoy it. The characters were mostly flat, as they were in Reservoir Dogs, and the film was still missing the kind of scene that made the Bruce Willis torture scene in Pulp Fiction a classic (a scene which I still haven't seen outside of the Simpsons, might I add...). The film had little to no suspense, and often had entire sections (such as the trip to Bill's friend in Mexico) that literally made me rest my eyes in mundanity.

But I will definitely give Tarantino props for a) having REAL Cantonese in a Western film for once, b) not having any horrible Chinese-Western philosophical bullshit crap like what I had to roll my eyes through in the Matrix and Crouching Tiger, and c) for making a film that was of worthy caliber to someone who has yet to see the first movie in the two-part trilogy...

Because yes, I admit it. I have yet to see the first Kill Bill. Let us never speak of this again...

... except for... well... now I sort of want to see the first film... I mean, it's out on DVD, so it's only a matter of time...

Volume 2 is by no means my favourite film of the year, even though it's literally the ONLY film I've watched this year... But it "interested" me enough to want to catch the prequel on maybe a bus ride home... And I'm betting that not many people out there will disagree with me, that this film is different enough from standard fare, Hollywood lore to actually provide some magical movie variety in our lives for once... outside of the Pixar universe, that is... and, well... As for Kill Bill, Volume 2? I can't highly recommend the film... but I can recommend it...

Y2kk Update: - Smallville: Legacy & Truth, Angel: Underneath & Origin Reviews (Spoilers) -

Let's get down to business. Last week in television absolutely reeked of suckiness in my opinion, including NHL Hockey (thanks to my beloved Maple Leafs choking in Game 4). But this week in television? This week was good... Enterprise was back, Angel pulled off the best episode of the week, the Leafs eliminated Ottawa yet again (and Game 6 was entertaining, even though we lost), and hell, even Smallville was memorable...

First of all, let's backtrack to last week. Smallville aired some horrible episode called Legacy or Manny Legace or some crap like that. All I know is that...

Bah. I'm not even going to bother trying to think up something to say... The episode flat out sucked. Should I go on? Let's do... You see, the episode was just a bunch of horrible, melodramatic melancholy that I would never damn care about unless it came from my wife. Lana was being angsty as ever, rejecting Clark for the stupidest and overused of teen television reasons. I didn't care for the other females on the show either, considering Martha just played her worrisome sorry Trump card, and the apprentice Chloe wasn't even there... and Pete? Oh yes, his two seconds or less of screen time was golden globes quality, that's for sure... There was only one good thing about the episode: Christopher Reeve's return. Whether he's a great actor or not, it doesn't really matter. What matters, is that like Lionel Luther, he brings a real presence to the small ville screen. What I didn't enjoy though, was that while his talk with Clark was interesting, the ending of the episode simply was too stupid for me to bear. I mean, sure the key is practically magical - but how the hell, or why the hell did it transport it's way to Dr. Swan or Dr. Seuss or The Swan or whatever?... Maybe the answers for that will become apparent one day, but there's one other thing bugging me: what the hell is wrong with Lionel? Not only did he have the longest (an entire month was it?) suicide attempt in recorded history, but his menacing qualities were just absolutely wasted this episode in his desperate attempts to save his own life. While I do like the father vs father vs father thing now going on between Lionel, Jonathan Kent, and Jor'el, I did not like the fact that a) Mr. Kent was far too unnecessarily, ambiguously evil this episode and b) Lionel was still too damn stupid just to hit Clark with a baseball bat and see what happens... I mean, Lionel Luther goes through all this caveman trouble, for who? For what? For a man so powerful, he really is quite obsessed with the stupid things in life, without realizing how to get what he actually wants (but then again, the Superman universe is filled with non-glasses wearing idiots)... And even Lex Luther wasn't really entertaining to me this episode. All he did was wear an FBI wire - that's about it. And that's it about the episode, actually... it was all a bunch of filler crap that will hopefully actually be filled in when the season finale finally airs. But even if all my questions are finally answered, it still wouldn't make this episode a good one. It provided far too many question marks, when providing not even enough answers to make it feel complete with the episode it's supposed to be a direct continuation of... It may have been an integral episode in the arc, but it was also surely a waste of my time.

... and that's the cold heart truth about the legacy that Legacy has left on me...

But you know what else in the truth?... I can't believe I'm going to say this... Hell, I can't believe that I can even handle this, but... the truth of the matter is?... the truth and reconciliation?... well...

Damn Chloe. She and that damn truth serum... She brought the worst out of me, by actually making me laugh not just at the show, but with it for once! This episode was just so damn stupidly retarded, that it was actually as entertaining as those old school episodes of Buffy that I thoroughly enjoyed for no logical reasons whatsoever... Every character in Truth was, to be honest, brilliantly used. Let's start with Pete - I still chuckle at his "supersonic" admittance to Chloe early on, not to mention how pissed Clark looked at him afterwards (which was cool, considering they've both already completely forgotten about the Fast and the Furious rip off a while ago... I wish I could too...). And I was literally laughing hysterically when Pete put the lip locks on Chloe! Not only was it ridiculously funny thanks to both Clark's and Chloe's "ick" reactions, but it was just so damn entertaining, because there was absolutely no chemistry between Pete and Chloe whatsoever! It truly was a guilty pleasure - seeing a kiss on television as awkward as anything I could probably bring to the screen... and ah, it truly deserved to go in the books for best on screen kiss ever. I'd vote for it at the MTV awards, at least... And Lana? Well, I'd be lying if I said that he awful talk with Clark at the end of the episode didn't have me banging my head against metaphorical high school lockers all over again. But I just loved the reaction on Chloe's face when Lana admitted she couldn't trust her. Somehow, Ms. Sullivan's jubilant cheeriness juxtaposed against Lana's overwhelming seriousness, just brought out the best humour in the scene for me... And the Kent parents? I forget if Jonathan was even in the episode, but I simply loved the reaction on Martha's face when she started talking about Clark's biological father. Her jaw was literally hanging off her cheeks when she realized what she had done, and was probably her best acting I've ever gullibly, lullably enjoyed in the series... And Lex Luther? Once again, he was back to being the man. Or at least, The Man... It was his project that did this to Chloe, and I loved how he cared more about getting to the truth about his father and his lost past than about Chloe's condition. Finally he's starting to look like the half evil man he was before this whole mindwipe thing of his... And once again, I did feel that spark of chemistry between Chloe and Lex. Both have that twinge of innocent evilness in them. I know that Chloe won't turn out to be an evil queen bitch in the end, but still... I really do see in both her and Lex the ability to turn both ways at the forks coming in the road, and for this one week only, I'll actually attribute that to good acting and <GASP! Don't say it, Chris!...>... good writing...

But goddammit, for one week only at least, it's true. I loved Chloe Sullivan this episode, as her evil smirk really did unleash the guilty pleasures I've been holding back ever since the end of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I loved how damn selfishly, devilishly, orgasmic happy she was when she went around to all the high school students, asking for their deepest secrets without any hint of remorse... And when she directly asked Clark about his secret? Although I did slap my head silly when she never put 1+1 together and realized he was IMMUNE to her powers for a reason, I still just loved so much the expression on her face when she was bitch slapped down, that it'll probably go down as my favourite scene of Smallville for the entire damn season... Now, the episode wasn't all pluses and smiles. The whole murder thing with the teacher from Stargate brought a whole negative demeanor to the episode that I really didn't care much for, and the battle on the bridge obviously wasn't very interesting to me until I slapped my head at the stupidity of Chloe getting knocked out for the umpteenth time in a row (although Clark ripping apart her clothes to literally touch her heart was every guy's fantasy, I suppose...). But none of that changes the fact that this episode was at least the second best Smallville episode of the year, simply because of the chemistry between Chloe and Clark... Though it wasn't love I saw... and it wasn't friendship either... but rather, I saw a hint of evilness in Chloe. And I saw Clark care more about his own secret identity than he did about her... and in that sense, Chloe and Lex truly belong together. Because for this one episode alone, the truth of the matter is, Chloe could provide the best damn villain to Clark Kent that this pathetic teen show can provide. Afterall, comic book heroes normally do battle in the end with their best friends... I learned that from M. Night's only decent movie out there.

Okay, I admit it. The truth is painful, but the truth must come out: I loved this week's episode of Smallville, far more than I could ever care for last week's episode of Angel... There, I said it. Hurts, doesn't it?... But it's not like that's saying much. Because I don't care what the fans on the internet say - Underneath last week was perhaps the most boring episode of Angel this entire season. I mean, anyone who reads my small Smallville week in reviews, fully knows that I absolutely hate overpretentious scripts and plotlines that sadly try to have meaning outside of the Star Trek universe... And Underneath definitely fits into both of those categories. I mean, honestly! Every character was just morbid and shallow and utter depressive in last week's episode. Take Gunn for starters. I mean, I liked how discouraged he was in the hospital bed, seemingly believing that Wes stabbing him was the right thing to do. But then we got stuck with his "atonement", which came far too damn easily for me to care, regardless of painfully tantalizing it looked. And don't even get me started on how damn much I groaned at the sight of a little kid holding an automatic. I won't get into crappy Columbine issues or anything, but the scene was just too damn comical for its own good, if only due to inproportionate proportions (although in a novel, it probably could've worked)... And Wesley? All he did was drink his life away. I mean sure, he has a good excuse to be depressed, considering the love of his life just died from his viewpoint... But dammit, it's been more than a month for us viewers! I got over Fred a hell of a long time ago - he should too... And Illyria? Her lines were the most overzealous crap that I've heard outside of the Matrix. I give all the credit in the world to Amy Acker for truly acting like an alien to her former character, but honestly! I didn't even laugh at her Smurf comment, which was pretty much the only comic relief in this episode! I was literally pressing against my temples, hoping that she'd just shut up as she prodded on and on about the world changing this, humans being in walls that. The only thing I cared about was her comment about the Shrimp Universe, and only because it brought back fond memories of Anya when she was still new to the world... Underneath was beneath me as far as I'm concerned, because it was the complete opposite of what Anya and Smallville's Truth stood for: a serious matter turned into the best of comedies. That's the television I want... but if this is the kind of crap that gets praised? Then honestly, I'm with Illyria - what has become of the world?...

And the A plotline of Angel and Spike going to Lindsay's rescue? What can I say?... Eve looked hot to me the last time we saw her in Lindsay's loft. I can't say she looked good last week... and without her looks? Sorry, but she ain't got the acting abilities to make up for her lack of uber hotness... And Lorne? I loved his "1 to Terminator" scale, but his character just couldn't execute his "I tell people what they want to hear" lines with the oomph needed for me to actually care... Now, I admit I laughed at Hamilton's cheesy punching of a guard through the gut. That was good. And I still love Angel's comment out of nowhere, "Damn... he is well dressed". But besides that? When I didn't even like Spike in an episode, you know it has to be bad... Angel just went on and on to Gunn about waking up in the middle of the night crap, as if Angel was somehow better than Gunn after all he's done. And I couldn't stand how damn many bullets Angel could take to the goddam chest without even slowing him down (although Spike taking them in the back was more "realistic")... But what really killed this episode for me, was the so-called "revelation" at the end, about Revelations. I mean, c'mon already! There's a difference between "an" apocalypse and "the" apocalypse? Give me a break already... And only now Angel realizes that the Senior Partners are doing stuff behind his back? Geez, talk about being slow and Angel Avengers dumbwitted... This episode just didn't have what it takes to be entertaining in the Mutant Enemy-verse. From beneath you it devours... That was absolutely the worst tagline in the history of the Buffyverse, and as a not very much of a naming coincidence, Underneath wasn't much better... Hell, I'd rather even watch Underworld than this crap. And that's bad...

I was really hoping that Angel was redeem itself this week as an act of atonement in my eyes...

It wasn't just the best episode of the week... It was probably the best damn episode of Angel season 5, next to Damage or whatever that episode was called... Origin really had that touch of writing that I can only dream of having. It had comedy, philosophy, action, and heart warming, all in three simple acts. It was brilliant, on all accounts... Gunn may not have had many scenes, but his chemistry when refusing a date with Tad Hamilton was simply astounding. The "gibbet" talk and Gunn demanding his necklace back as soon as he heard the word "deal", really almost made me forgive how damn cheesy Lindsay's breakout of this suburban prison really was... And Lorne? Even though he didn't have many lines, at least he didn't say anything wrong. He was back to being his old self. And although his character may hate to hear this, I really do prefer him as just the Green Hornet guy who goes around and snaps away nothing more than some smiles... And Hamilton? Although he'll never be as hot to me as Eve was, at least he has Stargate SG-13 under his belt for mucho respect. And unlike Eve, it's obvious that's a menacing enemy of the state - I loved his shoot down of Angel with the sex on the coach comment... And Vail was definitely a good villain of the week. I loved his comment about Sahjan having a nasty habit of trying to kill him - he perfectly merged seriousness with comic relief, in a definite way that made it believable that he would actually take away all of Connor's good memories... But the absolute two best supporting cast members this episode definitely have to go to James Marters and Amy Acker. This is the first ever episode that Illyria was great and actually interesting in my eyes, and kind of hot too... I've literally watched her two scenes with Spike about a half dozen times already, each time never getting bored of what happens on screen... I loved Spike's reaction to getting ass kicked in the face. I loved Illyria's hot "I enjoy hurting you line", as she had the same kind of chemistry with Spike as Fred did back when the season began... I still gurgle with laughter whenever she sends Spike flying across the room, and all Wesley does is walk in and shrug his shoulders... I absolutely loved Spike's finger pointing when he mentions "we're working on the basics"! I loved his "filthy harlot" line when he got his damn clipboard thrown right back into his face... And I loved how nobody at all cared when Illyria was literally stepping on Spike's head! The comedy between these two was as great as their romantic interludes ever were before, almost as if they were dancing... It was all capped off by a great line: "I want to keep Spike as my pet"... heh, it seems Illyria has grown fond of the half breed. And wow - we learned she can possibly talk to plants!... everything about Spike's and Illyria's scenes together were golden. Nothing could've been better... except perhaps an entire world of Shrimp, but I digress...

But the real stars of the show were of course Angel, Wesley, and Connor... I never really took a liking to Connor back in seasons 3 and 4, although I did love Soulless. But Vincent was simply great this episode - hell, as I mentioned before, the entire cast was... I mean, I can't help but feel bad for Wesley! He betrayed Angel a second time, just to learn that he already betrayed him before! Now, it still bugs me that we don't know what those falsified memories of his were. I mean, hasn't he ever stopped and wondered why he's become so dark and broody?... And now he knows. I can't help but feel sorry for him, but it was a hell of a ride along the way. Every moment that Wesley came closer to realizing that reality had been changed, from documents to signatures signed in blood and crap like that, I was really wondering to myself whether it was such a good thing to remember the past or not. I mean, Wesley has become a better person since taking over Wolfram and Hart it seems, although the real philosophy comes in wondering whether that would've happened with his real memories or not... And Connor? He played the perfect college kid. I loved his lusting after Illyria - his comment of always having a thing for older women, and Angel's "they were supposed to fix that" mutter under his breath, literally had me snickering while writing my exams all this week... I frivolously enjoyed his entire dynamic with Angel this episode, showing the kind of hero worship and curiousity that he never showed as a boy raised in Quortoth. I loved his Anne Rice novels reference, especially after my obsession became obsessed with that kind of crap back in high school... I loved his fascination with fighting, yet he was unable to even take an axe off of the wall any cleaner than I could. And his fight against Sahjan? Not only was their opening bout of talking rather amusing, but it brought real closure to a story arc long gone missing. And not only that, but it brought out the best acting I've seen from Vincent in the entire series... After remembering everything, he tried faking to Angel that he didn't remember a thing, perhaps to ease his father's mind. You could just tell from the half-shakiness in his voice - he was pretending like he didn't know the truth. And that still hits me to this day... Angel's reaction to Connor actually forgiving him before he left, quite honestly warmed my heart in ways that nothing but Buffy and Spike on screen ever could... Angel truly did feel like a father in this episode. In past seasons, he was more like a mere guardian... and Connor? For once, he actually did feel like his son. That's the impression I got at least. And as an episode, that's what worked. That's what made it my episode of the week.

Now, I was going to review Enterprise's "Damage" this week, but since I've wasted too much time already procrastinating from my last exam on Monday, I think I'm going to wait until my next series of reviews to bother with Enterprise... Until then, I have a lot of bitching to do about the Leafs and Phile series, not to mention what's going on in the heads of Nintendo of Jpaan it seems. And oh yes, I need a fucking job too... being the only one left behind the frontlines?... that's making me feel really cranky... I really don't like people touching my neck, at least away from Home...

Y2kk Update: - Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes Gamecube Review (Spoilers) -

Reviewers have become just a tadpole bit jaded over the past generation of games, now haven't they? And a good thing too... I mean honestly, what was the last game that actually got scores of 10s across the boards, like games always used to all during the Playstation era?... I mean, Soul Caliber? Vagrant Story? Or was it that goddam Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3? I can never remember the key details of life, it seems... because reviewers have finally woken up and smelled the goddam Folgers, I believe...

They no longer dish out all the flagrant and not very fragrant perfect scores that they used to, and for good measure as well. Almost none of the games that were given a 10 out of 10 from once revered sites such as Gamespot, Famitsu and IGN, still deserve their fraudulent star studded space in the video gaming walk of fame... Soul Caliber was perhaps the worst 3d Fighting game I've played since Mortal Kombat on the N64, and yet it managed to become ranked as one of the highest games of all time on the Gamerankings list, simply because it wowed the fans with arcade quality graphics and controls?... I may have never played Vagrant Story myself, but how the hell could an RPG like this one, which nobody even cares about anymore, possibly achieve a perfect Platinum Score from the hardest ranking magazine in Japan?... and goddammit, don't even get me started on Chrono Cross. There were far better RPGs at the time, yet that game got a perfect score from Gamespot, simply as if the reviewers had gone back in time, and assumed they were playing Chrono Trigger instead of the sequel?... And Tony Hawk Pro Skater? TONY HAWK PRO SKATER?!! WTF?...?... I rest my case...

As a Zelda fanboy, I still pretty much stand by my stubborn, medieval belief that one and only one series over the course of history has ever had the universal, undying, revolutionary appeal that a perfect score is meant to represent... As far as I'm concerned, only The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has truly stood the test of time with true colours (except in the graphics department), and truly proved to the world that it deserved the unanimous praise it garnered back in its day... but just to give the Sony Playstation fanboys their dues, there was one other game that I thought just might, just maybe might, have deserved the perfect scores it got from seemingly every single site on the net but Gamespot... If there was just one other game besides the Mario and the Zelda games that truly has stood the test of time within gamers' hearts, even if it hasn't in my own...

No, it's not the blasphemy of the Final Fantasy series... it's not the repugnancy of the Pokemon or Dragon Quest series... and it's not the redundancy of the Megaman or Street Fighter series... It's a game that I was forced to respect as perhaps the greatest of all time, simply because so many others' out there quite literally respect it as the greatest game of all time, even to this very day... and maybe I'll never know why, but I somehow believed that it somehow deserved the respect that it had...

Sorry for the infamously long, IvanFian introduction to my first video game review of an official 2004 title, but I just had to get it off my chest: I really did believe that Metal Gear Solid, with its continuing love, John Woo doves, devotion, fanbase, and controversy to this very day, was really the only series that could challenge my precious Zelda for the Holy Grail of gaming... and hell, thanks to some amazing movie-like trailers, I even fell into the hype for Metal Gear Solid 2, until all the net negativity started to spread... and hell, Metal Gear Solid 3 still looks appetizing to me even to this day... But there was one game above all else that I was just dying to try. There was just one damn game that I sure as hell was anticipating above all else for the latter half of 2003 and definitely for the first half of 2004... I was literally salivating over the Konami trailer for the past seven months, for this one game and one game alone...

And after finally playing through this game. After finishing this remake of the original to - pardon the pun - test it's metal?... just to see if it was truly as solid of a title as everyone said it was fated to be...

As soon as I popped this game out of the box and into my Gamecube, I knew that my frothing anticipation had all been in vain... I started playing through the game on normal difficulty (yes, just normal - not even Extreme like any true MGS fan would do), and what the hell? What the hell just happened?... I got caught something like a dozen times in a row... I got massacred by the Genome Soldiers about half a dozen of those times... in the first frickin' room I might add... IN THE FIRST FRICKIN', GODDAM ROOM?!!... Now maybe one day, just one day from now, I might end up considering that to be a decent part of the game, that it provided me with a challenge worthy of my so-called veteran status... But with my final exams just a few days away? With the fact that I had no time for games in the first place, and that I shouldn't be playing Metal Gear Solid anyways?... I mean, what the hell was going on here?! I couldn't even get past the goddam first room in the game?! I felt like Niles Crane, but only a select few would understand what the hell that means... And now I remembered why I goddam hated this game in the first place... Because I fucking sucked at it back in 1999!... and I still fucking suck at it to this very day...

... and if that ain't a reason to loathe the game like a loaf of sliced bread, then I don't know what is...

I hate to say this (not like it's any secret, mind you), but my review below will be <gasp!> quite jaded, simply from one simple reason: I fucking suck at this game!... I played through the game on Very Easy, and still goddam died about two dozen times on the M1 Tank alone. Now that REALLY shows that I suck... After I got the bandana, I managed to play through the game on easy, and once I got the stealth camaflouge, I went through the game on normal, although I guess it wasn't really intended for me to massacre all the guards as soon as I was discovered in every room, but still... I may have played through this damn short game three times already, but none of those times really felt fair to the game developers. In a sense, I'll be giving Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes a little more credit than I actually believe it deserves near the end, simply because, just like I couldn't gauge Halo properly until I had played Legendary on co-op, I don't think I can fairly grade MGS without playing on Extreme pita... which will never, ever happen with my awful, woeful, Genome fucking from behind skills, thank you very much... So Solid Snake, you're getting a break...

But there's another reason why I always hated the original Metal Gear Solid, besides the fact that I couldn't even get to the first boss in the original game... I simply hated the fact that the trailers for the game were so much damn better than the actual game itself! And it became true for Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes as well... Thanks to the blurriness of the trailers from Konami, I was expecting graphics on the Gamecube nearly as good, if not better, than all those doctored looking shots of MGS2. But when I actually got the game in hand, what did I see? Sure, the graphics looked smooth and nicely filtered. But where were all the beautiful particle effects, next to the falling snow on the sniper scope? Where were all the highly textured faces I was expecting, except for Solid Snake (who was pretty much the only one who didn't look like a blank piece of shit... hell, even Liquid looked like a zombie in the end...). Where was the brilliant play control that I expected from a Metal Gear Solid game? Although the two-stage analog controls of walking and running were adequate most of the time, I simply don't understand why the controls didn't respond to me half the time at random intervals (I couldn't run diagonally on screen, for example). And honestly? My biggest gripe was the fucking music! The goddam game trailers featured the most beautiful music I had ever heard in a game next to the Legend of Zelda series. But where the fuck was any of it in the actual game? Except for the Psycho Mantis remix and the music when you first encounter the Hind, the score in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes was pitiful at best! For a game that's so much like a feature film that it can only be gauged like a fucking feature movie, why the hell did it have perhaps the worst video game musical score that I've heard in this generation of consoles? Hell, even Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin had more interesting tunes than this supposedly epic game... Honestly, when a guy willingly gets caught by the guards all the damn time, just to hear the Metal Gear Solid theme song play for once, then you know that's pretty bad in terms of game design... at least if you asked me... especially considering the immensely high standards the E3 and TGS trailers set for me about the game.

I'll admit it here and now, in case I haven't stressed the point strongly enough yet... Before I played The Twin Snakes, I hadn't played more than a single stage of Metal Gear series before in my life. And I'll admit that considering the series' reputation for polish, I was expecting a hell of a lot more from this game that I got in return... The crawling on the ground was - ironically enough - a bit too unrealistic in use of its realism. It got annoying how I couldn't turn my sniper rifle around, depending on what railings my feet were hitting on the ground... The first person mode was especially grating in the sense that your gun doesn't stick out by default. Without it visible, I couldn't aim for a dipshit's worth. And colour me blind, but being colourblind, the damn invisible laser pointer didn't help much either, except when it was nicely shone in my own sniper scope by Sniper Wolf it seemed (that was the ONLY way I could locate her in the snow...)... But while I have tons of complains about the so-called polish in this game, I still have to give credit where credit is due to the team at Silicon Knights. While some on the internet complained about the framerate, I can honestly say that except for the particle effects in first person mode, I never, EVER saw the game dip below forty to fifty frames per second, not even when the guards were alert. For a game with silky smooth graphics, silky smooth animation was definitely a plus of a must as well... And of course I have to give enormous credit to Konami, for putting so many side thingies into this game that it's simply not funny. Having wolves piss on boxes, having sandbags leak out slowly, or even having guards who zip up at the washrooms realistically, were all truly a god's gift to gaming, in a sick, sixth sense at least... And the gameplay itself, what little of it there is? I didn't mind the backtracking to the armory one bit, and I personally enjoyed all the little ideas like shoving guards into lockers (which was promptly copied by every stealth game out there today, might I add). After playing Splinter Cell, it's hard to remember what the Metal Gear Solid series did to revolutionize gaming. But despite all my complaints, I can honestly say that Konami and Silicon Knights sure as hell did a damn good job of reminding me, with a game where I have no real complaints I suppose, besides the music...

My total play time on Very Easy was about six or seven hours worth. My gameplay on Easy was even less than that... Literally three or four hours of each of those playtimes were goddam movies... Now, if I had never played Shenmue II before, I'd be making fun of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes left and right now, for all its movie-wannabe glory, just as much as I did back during the Playstation era days... but after falling in love with the interactive storyline in Shenmue II?... hell's bells, well then... I'd STILL make fun of Metal Gear's goddam movie-wannabe glory, even to this day!... Why? Because honestly, more than a fucking half of my money was spent on a goddam movie! More than that, more than half of my money was spent on a fucking BAD movie... If Twin Snakes wasn't a discounted game in the first place, I'd be sure as hell complaining, even more than I am to this day... The gameplay honestly felt like a Super Nintendo game, and I mean that in both a good and a bad way. If it wasn't for the movies, I could've just zipped around all the baddies on easy and normal and beaten the game in one sitting, ala Super Mario World or some crap like that... Now, I loved the Super Nintendo golden ages. I really did. But my tastes as a gamer have definitely changed (though definitely not matured)... and while the guard AI clearing I witnessed on normal difficulty alone was rather brilliant and suspenseful to say the least, the fact of the matter is, that the normal gameplay is almost non-existent in this game! It's literally a movie this, a boss battle that, walk five steps, and then bang - another movie, and another boss. There was a gas shortage and a flock of seagulls - that's about it... Sure, all the Hideo side thingies make toying with the Genome guards and shattering mirrors a bit of fun. But if all you want to do is play the damn game like it was meant to be played, like I did? Then there simply isn't very much to go around...

... or actually... there's nothing to go around... hence is the curse of Alaska... not unless you play on Extreme, it seems...

And honestly, considering the game possesses four hours or literally more of movies, I have no choice but to treat this game review as if it was a movie review. And as a movie review, I have to ask Silicon Knights one thing: WTF?... Honestly... while the gameplay was silky smooth in framerate to me, why the hell weren't the cinematics? Even the starting movies had choppy framerate problems, and I'm not talking about blurriness or intentional slo-mo like some burned out reviewers often mistake for framerate problems... I mean I literally see the Colonel's hand disappear and reappear on the other side of the screen due to a lack of processing power, every single damn time I play the scene... And no Denis Dyack, I don't have a modded Gamecube. And it certainly isn't the disc, when the movies are choppy, no matter whether I use disc one or two, no matter on who's Gamecube... There's simply no fucking logical explanation why the movies are so damn framerate plagued in this game, when there's absolutely no action happening on screen! If Metal Gear Solid was an actual game by my standards, I could forgive such a foresight, or lack thereof... but after four fucking hours of choppy cutscene framerates?... When the gameplay itself is smoother than the times I'm literally watching as a framerate whore?... then honestly!... the only thing possibly worse was... well?...

Because honestly! What the fuck were Playstation fans smoking? Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes has perhaps THE absolute worse plotline I've ever suffered through in a game, period! Hell, it even makes Pong and Pac-man seem rich, deep, and layered with subtext in comparison... I mean honestly! The characters, in both the codec sequences and the actual cutscenes, just keep droning on and on about shit this and goddam pointless crap that, without ever stopping until I finally shut them up with the accidental push of a button! Honestly, it all reminded me of the awful crap I wrote back in high school, when I sadly thought just writing a ton of shit could get people to finally notice my philosophical crap! I mean sure, I still fall plague to the writing-too-damn-much-to-seem-smart epidemic (as this very review ironically indicates...), but at least I no longer expect people to actually read my shitty shit! And at least I'm not actually trying to sell my shit to people who would rather spend it on a decent movie... I mean honestly! I felt like this game was written by twelve year olds trying to scream for their community newspaper rantings to be heard! And it certainly didn't help that the voice acting in the game was horrid beyond belief, despite the fact that everyone's favourite Cam Clarke (LEO!) was a member of the star studded cast... The only pluses were that Solid Snake's and the Colonel's voices were simply too cool for their bodies, and Mei Ling sounded cute as fucking hell (yes, I know all about her lost accent - thank God for that...)... but that certainly didn't help the cutscenes, where every single damn character had the absolute worse dialog pacing I've ever heard outside of a goddam porno flick! And hell, even porn flicks sound better - at least the moaning in those are always much better than anything Meryl sadly managed to drone out like a recording... And even more sadly, Raven was probably the only character who actually seemed in character by talking so damn slowly. And after such stellar games as Knights of the Old Republic, I really didn't expect to hear this kind of awful voice translation crap outside of the Shenmue sailor series... I really didn't...

... this game honestly felt like a relic of the Cold War days... and that's definitely not a good thing...

I realize the game was meant to be unrealistic, considering it deals with clones and genetic viruses and crap like that. And hell's bells, those were the parts that I actually enjoyed in the plotline! Even though it was predictable, there was only one plot twist that I actually liked: the FoxDie virus... Now, that one, single, lone ranger plus to the story was absolutely ruined by an absurd relationship between Naomi and Snake based on revenge, but besides that? This one aspect of the plotline actually left my thinking... I was confused as to why the Darpa Chief died before Snake's very eyes, and I knew something was going on when President Baker had a heart attack out of nowhere as well. When all of this mixed with the fact that Liquid Snake was trying to get the nuclear launch access codes, even though it made me roll my eyes when Snake never even checked to see if Metal Gear Rex was already armed, I was still impressed when it was all said and done, that so many of the loose ties through the entire story were finally coming together as one giant ball of string in the end... I always say it for movies, and I'll say it for Metal Gear Solid too: I am easily impressed when all the pieces from the start of a story come into play at the finale... In that sense, Metal Gear Solid had it all. All the talk of the predetermined destiny of your genes, was nicely contrasted between the differences in choices that both Liquid and Solid Snake made. The ideology of differences in the nature vs nurture debate was nicely brought up in the deaths of Psycho Mantis and Sniper Wolf. And hell, I even liked some of the nuclear arms talk from Natasha. Although she droned on and on and never shut up, even when I never meant to contact her, I still admit that the idea of Metal Gear Rex restarting the Cold War, so that Liquid would finally have a place to fit, was a nice idea that tied all the way back into the idea that genes are what makes us who we are. And if it wasn't for the horrid, horrid script writing at the end of the game, I might even be applauding the Metal Gear writers for putting some real meaning into their work...

But God... oh God, who the fuck actually wrote the script for this game? A thousand monkeys, all typing at a thousand typewriters for a thousand fucking weeks in a row? Because honestly... Yes, we get it already! Liquid is a fucking evil clone! And yes, we get it! He got the recessive genes! That's why he's blond!... Sheesh... Honestly, did Liquid Snake really have to drone on and on for about thirty fucking minutes straight about the shit of his life, as if he was writing his own IvanFian noname update, when we were supposedly at the goddam climax of the storyline?... Did President Baker really have to go on and on about nuclear waste disposal crap when it barely had any bearing on the game whatsoever?... Did Otacon really have to bore on and on about Hiroshima this and genetic curses that, when all we really care about is ZOE these days?... Honestly, for the entire four hours of movies in the damn game, there were only about thirty minutes worth of actual decent information in there... Honestly, it seemed the damn monkeys who pulled each others' ears out to write this game, wanted to pack in as much political ramblings and smoking guns as possible, just to try to get their gazillion personal points across, most of which I care absolutely nothing about! Like I said, the game honestly felt like it was written by twelve year old girls, trying to make a PMS statement to the world or some crap like that! It forced upon me not just political policies that I don't give a damn about, but political shit that I've literally heard back in high school a thousand times fold! And hells bells, I'll be damned if I care to hear it again. Not without a cute girl like Mei Ling teasing me, whipping me good behind the phone...

But while the overall story may be absolutely the worst story ever conceived for a goddam video game, right next to BMX XXX, that Japanese raping game, and <gasp!> The Sims, I will admit that it did have a few redeeming points... The scenes that really did aspire to greatness in the game, were ironically the cutscenes that barely had any dialogue whatsoever. Because I will admit it here and now - although the blood was a bit excessive, every single scene with the Gray Fox Ninja was amongst the best damn storytelling done in a game, ever. From his first introduction and the slicing of Ocelot's hand, to his utterly useless and stupid sacrifice of getting his Star Wars arm sliced off by a little light bulb that blinks, that one and only Cyber Ninja owned the small screen - and quite frankly, was the only part of the game that truly matched the quality of the game's trailers... While it got on my nerves how Solid Snake could avoid bullets with backflips and spring rolls and crap like that, it never got on my nerves about what kind of magic he was able to perform whenever he was going one on one, mono a mono with the Ninja. And why? Because here's a hint, Konami: before you show your shit off with a bunch of wacky stunts, before you go on and on and bored me to tears with your own political agendas, you have to actually make us CARE about the characters first. You actually have to SUSPEND our belief first... and quite frankly, the only character with a mystique around him that I actually could care about, was the Ninja. From his epic slaughtering of the Genome Soldiers, to merely his grandest of lines during your not-so-epic hand to hand fight with him, the Cyber Ninja was a true testament of what every gaming Otacon wants... He was different. He was strange. And hell, he was cool... resistance was futile, for his scenes were directed to pure brilliance, and shine alone as a single star amongst all the horrid crap I had to put up with in the rest of the game...

Like I mentioned before, the game was essentially walk three steps, get into a cutscene, fight a boss, then walk three steps until another cutscene... And technically, despite the stupidity factor of it all, this actually wasn't such a bad idea for the game in the end. Ocelot was a simple boss to fight, but I loved dodging his bullets until he had to reload... I may have died twenty times on the M1 Tank, but it was worth it to laugh at the cutscene afterwards... The cinematography for the CyberNinja was the best in the business, even though the battle itself was not... The Hind had really great music at first, but it just sucked that the wimpy sound of the Stinger missiles took the impact all out from the actual battle... The second battle with Raven had another great cutscene with the biggest ass gun I've ever seen, but the annoying "?" sounds got the best of me during the cold, bitter fight... and Liquid Snake? Honestly, if I hadn't played Prince of Persia this year, this would've been absolutely the worse final boss fight I've ever had in my life. No matter the difficulty, Metal Gear Rex was a walking joke (with the only problem being that my stupid Stinger missile kept locking onto the wrong parts of the machine). And the one on one fight with Liquid Snake was perhaps the single worst boss battle in the entire damn game, if not this generation of consoles... and honestly? As soon as Abraham Lincoln wanted to nuke Snake's ass, what happened?... WTF? Liquid Snake isn't even scratched after a) crashing in a Hind helicopter, b) exploding with Metal Gear Rex, c) falling ten stories to his death, and d) crashing in a Humvee after getting shot in the face two dozen times fold?... well then... in the immortal words of Austin Powers, "WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!!!"... The only things that saved this game in my eyes from sheer ridiculousness, the only moments that truly were able to suspend my belief, were the memories of CyberNinja's brilliant cutscenes, a brilliantly unorthodox battle with Psycho Mantis (not only did I love horny Meryl, but Psycho Mantis was right about a lot of the things he said... I just don't understand why he read the Super Mario Sunshine save on my memory card rather than the BMX XXX one instead...), and a lovely (but easy) outing with Sniper Wolf both times around (I even liked her nice quote of becoming an "observer" of war instead of being on the inside... but I guess after Saving Private Ryan, we all have soft spots for snipers...)...

Besides a few brief moments of weakness on my behalf, where I almost cared about brainwashed Meryl (thanks to her tight ass tank top and her lovely panties in the ladies' room, though not thanks to her ugly ass face), the plotline of this game simply made no fucking, logical sense. And it's not the absurd parts of it that felt wrong like I said - I loved the idea of Metal Gear Rex, I loved the CyberNinja, I loved Psycho Mantis floating around as a giant big head, and I loved the fact that Solid Snake would truly kick ass (the Hind cremation line was gold)... But it was the supposedly realistic parts of the game that made me want to shoot the writers of the fucking script like the dogs they are. Having Meryl fall in love with Snake after two damn minutes of me pumping her full of tranqs rather than something else, made no fucking sense whatsoever! Having Ocelot talk like an idiot and give away the Darpa Chief's secret during the meaningless torture scene made no fucking sense whatsoever! Having the Colonel playing second fiddle to the Secretary of Defence, having Naomi on a English-accented revenge spree, and having a nuclear testing facility in Alaska for Metal Gear all should've made perfect logical sense, except for one thing... This game made no fucking sense whatsoever!... It tried to make a million points at once, and by doing so, had absolutely no point what-so-fucking-ever! And with that said, there's really only one thing left for me to say...

To be honest, whenever I read on the forums these days that Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes combines the best plotline of the 20th century with the best gameplay of the 21st century, I puke as if I'm radiation sick like there's no tomorrow... And this is coming from a Nintendo fanboy that was literally masturbating in joy when he heard the series was coming over to the Gamecube!... Plotwise, the game was shit. Gamewise, the game didn't even exist, with its bad music, choppy cutscene framerates, and oh yes - a total lack of gameplay! Besides some innovative boss battles, the entire game was just one damn Y2kk rant of a whine, and to be honest? If I refuse to read my own shit on my websites, why the hell would I ever want to read a copy of my shit from Japan?... It makes no logical sense!... if I couldn't even fucking take the first Matrix movie seriously, let alone the next two films, with all their painful elementary school philosophical bullshit, then I sure as hell ain't going to give a damn about Metal Gear Solid the next time I play it through...

... and yet?... umm... I know this makes no logical sense, but... I will play it through for a third time... and I'll probably end up playing through it a fourth time... I'll never forgive this game for making itself as something that it simply cannot be: a game with a purpose. A game with meaning... I'll never forgive Konami for a) advertising it with game trailers that were way better than the game, and b) not advertising the game on fucking television at all, just because it's on the Gamecube... and I'll never forgive Silicon Knights for having the worse framerate I've ever seen in cutscenes, period... but I also can't forgive myself for going into the game with expectations far greater than I ever should've bought this game with... I expected a game worthy of a perfect score. That just wasn't logical of me... instead, I got a movie with shitty dialogue that would even make the governor of California cringe... But still, if you can get past that... then, well?...

... if you can get past the horrible dialogue... the Grade 8 storyline... the tragic lack of gameplay... the weird ass, random control bugs... and the Playstation hype machine that made this game appreciated far more than it ever damned deserved to be?... well then...

... in all logical sense, you wouldn't have a good game then, let alone a game period, now would you?...

It's still fun to sneak around rooms, even if they're bland and empty... It's still fun to sneak up on guards, even if all I really like to do is shoot... It's still fun to tackle on the bosses, even though the latter ones lack imagination... and still, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes has some of the most polished gameplay I've ever seen, even though there really is no gameplay, and even though everything but the gameplay is choppy as hell... And hells bells, even though this game is far from being perfect in my eyes, I still somehow respect it as much as I did before I ever had a chance to know better...

I've had a crisis of sorts this past couple of weeks, with university labs here and backstabbings there. Which pretty much explains why I haven't updated this website for quite the longest of whiles... I mean, for bloody hell once, I actually was too fucking busy to write crap on my websites. I even missed out on writing for the fourth anniversary of my Tweakui site's incarnation, all thanks to goddam midterms and milestones and goddam school work messing up my week... But ay, finally here lies the clitoris rub. Finally, here comes the calm before the storm, as I get a short reprieve of a week or two until my final labs and final exams all rear their own ugly asses in my tits and ass of a face...

But I'll leave the details of one of the worst hell weeks of my entire short university history for my Tweakui and download sites... 'twas a week of infamy, that will probably only be beaten out in the "to-be-bashed-with-an-ugly-stick" competition by the upcoming Hellboy... But all personal IvanFian ranting aside, I might as well point out that Smallville itself had a crisis of its own last week. I finally caught a rerun airing of Crisis, and simply put, suffice to say...

"God, that episode sucked. Why didn't they just stick to the brilliant, blue screen of death thingy they had last week? At least that had a decent plotline going for it..."

In a week where I was having my own midlife crisis, obviously I couldn't be bothered with the Smallville episode of Crisis... I mean, sure I did watch it, but did I really care about it?... well, I can't really hate the episode for its use of time travel (at least it mostly stuck with my own beliefs, that the future is already set). But I can fault the episode for a) bringing that time travel crap out of nowhere with the goddam use of a cellphone, and b) for that god-awful scene where Lana actually believed Clark appeared out of nowhere due to time travel, and not because of the superpowers she must've seen him use a couple dozen damn times by now... Now, I admit, the episode did have a couple of decent moments. The Korean scientist with absolutely no accent became humanized enough to die a pitiful death, a decent plotline started with Lex vowing to take down his father, and the wonderful twist and juxtaposition to the storyline of Lionel Luther being on deathrow. But all these minor little moments couldn't save the episode from contracting a bloody hell liver disease of its own and dying a horrible, Everybody Loves Raymond death... Chloe was useless except for being captured. Lana just ran around. Was Pete even there? Clark's parents were stupid enough to give Adam a gun. And Clark himself? Couldn't he have just ran around in all directions after he just missed Adam stealing Lieutenant Hammond's truck? I mean, at bloody hell lightspeeds, I don't think it would've taken long to comb the entire goddam block... The episode felt like a popcorn movie in most respects. Unfortunately for me, the popcorn movie in question was that horrible Clockstoppers movie, which I simpy refuse to accept that Jonathan Frakes actually directed... If Crisis is any example of the February Sweeps best that the Smallville writers can mustard gas up, then give me a bloody hell technical difficulties screen anyday... and bring back Angel, goddammit! I'm talking to you, WB...

But if there was any single light shining in my horrible past two weeks, it was the season finale of Stargate SG-1's seventh season... I admit that some of the episodes this season have been hit or miss, with most of them lacking the rewatch value of the previous seasons. But goddammit, I've already watched The Lost City Part 2 a dozen times by now, and goddammit, I still haven't gotten bored of this episode! It seriously ranks up there with Angel's Damage and Enterprise's Azati Prime as the best damn episode of any show for the entire year. And dammit, it even ranks up there with Within the Serpent's Grasp, The Serpent's Lair, and The Fifth Race as one of the best damn Stargate episodes of all time!... First of all, let me get off of my chest that the SG-1 crossword puzzle has turned into one of the best damn Stargate gags since Teal'c was driving golf balls through a wormhole in Window of Opportunity. I thought it was brilliant how Jack wrote the name of the planet in the crossword puzzle without even knowing it... and I especially thought it was brilliant how he wrote "Uma Thurman" as a celestial body... The episode didn't have much humour after that I suppose, but I still laugh out loud everytime Jack rips off Daniel's "At" symbol from his uniform, only to end up staring in disbelief along with the rest of the group at what the hell he was trying to say... First of all, I must admit that in those two scenes alone, Michael Shanks truly shined in his role as Daniel Jackson. I mean, this was the Daniel of old: both intuitive, and a history geek at the same time. I loved how he was able to understand whatever sounds Jack was making to the Stargate symbols. I loved his look of disbelief when Jack announced "Terra Atlantis" in one of the best scenes since Torment of Tantalus... I especially loved how wonderfully annoyed Daniel was when, instead of gasping in astonishment, he blasted back, "Jack! We were just there!" And oh yes, thank you, writers! Daniel was actually DECENT at translating this time! He got everything right, right off the bat (probably thanks to his ascended past), which is more than I can say for his translation crap job in The Fifth Race (goddammit Daniel, "locus" is a fucking ENGLISH word!... but, um, nevermind...). My only complaint was that this episode lacked any real Jack and Daniel banter, although I still chuckle everytime Daniel seemingly shakes his head at Jack's little goose chase to the Tayonas planet. I also can complain that Jack and Daniel didn't really have a special moment together like Jack and Sam, and Jack and Teal'c did. All Daniel did was mutter that he "would've done it"... but I guess we got enough of the two having "moments" together back in part 1 of the Lost City...

I can't say that I really enjoyed the moments between Sam and Jack though. I didn't feel that their romance was forced, but even with all the relationship stuff in the episodes leading up to this, I still felt that it was odd how Sam would finally start admitting stuff for Jack at this sort of place and time. I also thought their talk of Sam taking command of the mission to be kind of lacking in the end. Even after 12 watchings, I still pay more attention to the hum of the tweaked hyperdrive engines than I do to those two stars of the show getting close... However, I do grin everytime Sam awkwardly assumes command and actually gives Jack an order for the first time. I mean, the look on Teal'c's face was priceless... And just like with Daniel, instead of feeling reassured or any crap like that, she actually seemed annoyed at O'Neill when the Lost City was revealed to be on earth! Utterly brilliant! If only I could write like that... The only main character on the show who criminally didn't get enough meaningful air time this episode was Teal'c. As if writing Changeling last year lost him camera rights this year, Teal'c basically did nothing this episode except sit by Bra'tac's fallen side and pilot the cargo ship around Antarctica. I did find the moment between Jack and Teal'c to be rather touching though... quite literally, at least. As a guy, I sadly have inhibitions about touching other guys' faces, so the first time I watched this episode, the Teal'c and Jack scene did feel out of place. But after more and more watchings, I really started to enjoy that one scene alone. Christopher Judge can truly demonstrate a huge wealth of emotion with just a head nod and his patented "indeed"... And at least Teal'c got to kick ass against the Anubis drone soldiers. Although it still boggles me to hell how humanity actually built energy weapons within their regular firearms (I guess along with the BC-303, we're more advanced than most races out there now), it was still pretty damn cool that Teal'c could just stand there out in the open, and waste supersoldiers by the dozens...

And as for the other characters? Jessica Stein played a rather brilliant Elizabeth Weir for all the scenes that she was in, and the actress will sadly be missed when her character returns without her in Stargate Atlantis. However, two things were strange: a) she never once seemed in awe of the working Stargate in either Lost City episode like most newcomers do, and b) she was in barely any scenes in part 2... but still, for the scenes that she was there... I absolutely loved how bad her bad "kitchen sink" joke was (hell, every joke in this episode somehow seemed to hit the mark with me). And although the camera work was cheesy, I still enjoy the moment where the entire base somehow shakes from whatever Anubis sent through the Stargate (although it would've been funny if that was Thor who dialed into earth and stepped through... but nevermind...). However, I didn't feel she had any real chemistry with Senator Kinsey, animosity or not. Then again, I've never really respected Kinsey, even as a villain. It's not his cowardice that bugs me - it's his stupidity... Running away was perfectly natural for him, but completly ignoring the Goa'uld threat last episode? Or saying a bunch of idiotic crap to the president over the phone?... I don't know. His character just didn't cut it with me. But don't let the suit fool you - President Henry Hayes was truly the man this episode! Every scene he was in, he commanded with authority. I still roll around laughing every time Anubis holographs himself into the Oval Office. Not only is it ridiculously funny to see the guards empty machine gun pistol rounds into the president's family pictures, but I just love the president's new catch phrase: "Never going to happen!"... sure beats the "Axis of Evil" crap any day of the week... I mean, simply from the way he even loosened his tie when the thirty plus Goa'uld motherships appeared in orbit, the president owned the camera. From his assessment of the initial three Goa'uld situation, to his lack of panic (and thankful lack of Texan enthusiasm) at the sound of the Nimitz battle group dying a five minute death, I just wish America's real president was as damn solid and sophisticated as Henry Hayes was this episode...

Now onto the best parts of the episode... I've already mentioned that the moment where Terra Atlantis was revealed to be one of the best damn Stargate scenes ever since Torment of Tantalus. I was simply in awe at the revelations we were getting about the Stargate universe, even if I had always suspected that Stargate Atlantis would... umm... obviously have something to do with Atlantis... I also found it just as intriguing that earth wasn't The Lost City in the end. We were obviously a military outpost for the ancients, where they built one of the coolest sci-fi weapons of all time (it was like a living pillar of fire or a thinking finger of God - I loved how it dynamically twisted and tornado turned to swat Goa'uld glider bugs out of the sky...). But now the Stargate universe has truly opened up, with much better mythology than ascended being crap could ever provide. I mean, why did the Ancients die out? How could a measly virus get the best of them? Why were they building tons of weapons and a Lost City when the Goa'uld were no match for them? Why were the Ancients so much more advanced than even the Asgard of today (except for hyperdrive and transporter technology, it seems)? And if earth is not the Lost City, what was our planet's real purpose then?... I've loved the idea of earth being a colony of an ancient race of advanced humans ever since I first heard of the real Atlantis myth. So obviously, it comes at no surprise that I would fall in love with the myth finally becoming reality in the show... and obviously, as a Star Trek fan, of course I would fall in love with the epic battle scene between the Prometheus & the fleet of F-302s versus Anubis' gliders and Alkeshes... I mean, I was a bit disappointed at first, I must admit. I really felt that stuff involving that obviously evil Jaffa traitor should've been cut short, just to give a few more precious seconds to the battle of Hoth or Antarctica or whatever. But for what's there, I'm still impressed even to this day... General George Hammond truly got a great send-off from the show, even if he seemed quite out of element on the Prometheus. I loved the first barrage of ass kicking missile fire, finally taking down those Alkeshes that the Tau'ri never seem to be able to down (although if it takes three missiles to take one Alkesh out, I'd definitely think about attaching some death glider cannons to those F-302s). And even after that, with very little actually going on in the battle (planes were just flying around, barely shooting at each other, with the Prometheus only firing machine gun rounds for some odd reason), I was still greatly impressed by all the special effects. Hell, even the cargo ship flying through Antarctica had some of that "wow" feeling missing from Stargate ever since last season's Redemption, actually... And the moment where General Hammond was about to ram the BC-303 into Anubis' ship (since that one piddly missile it fired obviously did no damage)? I admit, I thought Bra'tac might die in this episode (his and Jacob Carter's times will be up soon, I know...), but I knew in my heart that Don Davis wouldn't die in his final episode. Nevertheless, I was still left wondering in anticipation whether SG-1 would save the day before General Hammond went down with his ship. And the scene where the majestic Ancient weapon tears apart the entire thirty mothership fleet? My only complaint was that poor Anubis didn't really get much room this episode to feel menacing... hell, he even looked pathetically short compared to O'Neill down in the Ancient's complex (couldn't he just enlarge his holographic self to be imposing?). But it was still satisfying to see his vessel go up in a billow of blue fire... Somehow, this episode just felt complete. Like a true full circle, which is more than I can say for last year's pathetic season finale...

My only real complaint with The Lost City Part 2 was that it felt rushed at times, with some odd pacing from here to there. The evil Jaffa thing definitely should've been cut shorter, if only to make room for more Jack moments with the rest of the team. And although I thought the cliffhanger part of the episode was done nicely (the "dormata" thing), the pacing of it still felt off compared to the slow dribble of seeing Jack walk through the Anubis hologram... but these minor quips aside, this episode absolutely kicked ass, and probably will end up as my favourite episode of the entire season of all shows. From the brash collision of the two warring fleets, to the simple smile on Bra'tac's face when he first heard Hammond's voice, to even the cheer out loud moment when the President mentioned that Canada knew about the Stargate - this episode was filled with the greatest of memories for me... It was definitely the best Stargate season finale since Nemesis, and probably the best damn action episode since The Serpent's Lair. And considering I'm counting it as more than just a worthy successor to The Fifth Race, which sits behind Best of Both Worlds as my absolute favourite television episode of all time?... well, that's saying a lot. And that means alot. I mean it. Because The Lost City did something that I didn't really think was possible during a hellboy week like this one of mine... it left me both satisfied, and craving for more... it truly brought forth the best of both worlds...

[c. visitors too bored to return...]
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